Rapid automatized naming in a developmental perspective between ages 4 and 10.

During the last decades, rapid automatized naming (RAN) has been widely examined as a predictor of reading ability, but very few studies have examined the development of RAN itself. The present study followed children from ages 4 until 10, focusing on RAN performance in a developmental perspective. Relations within and between alphanumeric and nonalphanumeric RAN were investigated both concurrently and over time. The result shows that individual differences in RAN objects are stable between ages 4 and 10, with the most rapid growth of mean performance between ages 4 and 6. Early performance on RAN objects predicts both performance on RAN digits and RAN letters at age 8 and the further development between ages 8 and 10. Further, low-performing children at age 4 develop their performance on RAN digits and RAN letters later compared with high-performing children, and RAN digits performance reaches a plateau earlier than RAN letters performance.