Verbal Processing Reaction Times in 'Normal' and 'Poor' Readers.

After it had been determined that reaction time (RT) was a sensitive measure of hemispheric dominance in a verbal task performed by normal adult readers, the reaction times of three groups of subjects (20 normal reading college students, 12 normal reading third graders and 11 poor reading grade school students) were compared. Ss were exposed to tachistoscopically presented slides with stimulus words across both visual fields and probe words presented to either the right or left visual fields. Both groups of normal readers exhibited superior right visual field RT while the poor readers failed to display such a superiority. Findings suggested that verbal RT may be a useful screening technique to identify potential problem readers. (Author/CL)