TITLE:
The Importance of Auditory Discrimination in the Acquisition of Mental Lexicon and Reading Automation in Arabic-Speaking Students in Kenitra (Morocco)
AUTHORS:
Chaouki Sadoussi, Ahmed Ahami, Abdechahid Loukili, Khaoula Mammad, Abdessamad Mrabet
KEYWORDS:
Auditory Discrimination, Reading, LABBEL, Mental Lexicon, Reading Acquisition
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Medical Psychology,
Vol.7 No.3,
July
5,
2018
ABSTRACT: Auditory discrimination is the ability to discriminate
between words and sounds. Auditory discrimination can affect reading, spelling and
writing. Several studies examined the correlation between auditory discrimination
and reading performance. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the importance
of auditory discrimination in the acquisition of mental lexicon and consequently
the automation of reading in a sample of 101 students in their fourth year of primary
education coming from four different schools in Kenitra (Morocco). The results
analysis shows that reading scores correlated significantly with the auditory discrimination
scores (r = 0.30, p 0.01). This proves that the inability to discriminate words causes a disability
to store them in the mental lexicon, which makes it difficult to identify these
words at a later encounter. This conclusion is supported by the significant correlation between reading
and auditory and visual lexical decision tasks. In this study we were able to emphasize
the importance of having good acoustic discrimination capacities for language development.
Students who were successful at the auditory discrimination task are more successful
at reading. A remediation program based on improving auditory discrimination capacities
using the language assessment battery LABBEL could see reading performance improvement in these students.