Investigation on rapid automatic naming and rapid alternating stimulus tests on 1 048 school-aged children in Nanjing

Objective To develop norms for the rapid automatic naming and rapid alternating stimulus tests (RAN/RAS tests) on school children. Methods A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select primary school students randomly from 8 schools in Nanjing, aged from 7 to 12 years old.The RAN/RAS tests included 6 classes of stimuli: objects, colors, numbers, simplified Chinese characters, numbers and simplified Chinese characters mixture, numbers and simplified Chinese characters and colors mixture. Results (1)A total of 1 048 students were randomly selected to participate in the study in 6 groups, with sex ratio of 1.00︰1.04.(2)The scores of the boys and girls did not differ significantly by any of the methods(objects, colors, numbers, simplified Chinese characters, numbers and simplified Chinese characters mixture, numbers and simplified Chinese characters and colors mixture)(all P>0.05). (3)On any of the measures in all groups, the scores decreased as the age increasing(P<0.001). (4)Compared with the three-item scores(objects, colors, numbers) between Chinese and English, there were significant statistical differences among all age groups(all P<0.001). (5)Time reliability correlation coefficient ranged from 0.84 to 0.92, and retest reliability correlation coefficient ranged from 0.98 to 0.99.The validity test showed that the correlation coefficient was statistically significant(P<0.05). Conclusions The scores of RAN/RAS tests norms have nice reliability and validity and are in line with the law of development.The norms derived in this study are recommended as the norm RAN/RAS scores for Chinese children. Key words: Dyslexia; Rapid automatic naming; Child, primary school