{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,6]],"date-time":"2026-04-06T21:37:31Z","timestamp":1775511451393,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":66,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,29]],"date-time":"2025-04-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1745884800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Children"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background\/Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate letter processing in children with dyslexia and typically developing readers as a function of the type of orthographic context. Methods and Results: In Experiment 1A, children performed a two-alternative forced choice task (Reicher\u2013Wheeler paradigm) using as probes either high-frequency words, pronounceable pseudo-words, or unpronounceable non-words. The group differences in letter recognition were clearly distinguished from those present in typical word and pseudo-word reading conditions (Experiment 1B), as a global factor was present only in the latter case. In Experiment 2, the two-alternative forced choice task required the child to search for the target letter in the subsequent multi-letter string (i.e., words, pseudo-words, or non-words), thus reducing the memory load. Detecting the target letter was more difficult in a word than in a pseudo-word or non-word array, indicating that the word form\u2019s lexical activation interfered with the target\u2019s analysis in both groups of children. In Experiment 3, children performed the two-alternative forced choice task with symbols (Greek letters) either in the Reicher\u2013Wheeler mode of presentation (Experiment 3A) or in the search condition (Experiment 3B). Children with dyslexia performed identically to typically developing readers in keeping with the selectivity of their orthographic difficulties. Conclusions: The present data indicate that children with dyslexia suffer from an early deficit in making perceptual operations that require the conjunction analysis of a set of letters. Still, this deficit is not due to an inability to scan the letter string. The deficit is confined to orthographic stimuli and does not extend to other types of visual targets.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/children12050572","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,2]],"date-time":"2025-05-02T08:28:11Z","timestamp":1746174491000},"page":"572","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Letter and Word Processing in Developmental Dyslexia: Evidence from a Two-Alternative Forced Choice Task"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6861-1452","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Daniela","family":"Traficante","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Universit\u00e0 Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milano, Italy"},{"name":"Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, 23842 Bosisio Parini, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6351-2455","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Pierluigi","family":"Zoccolotti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Roma, Italy"},{"name":"Tuscany Rehabilitation Clinic, 52025 Montevarchi, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8806-5655","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chiara Valeria","family":"Marinelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab, Department of Humanities, Letters, Cultural Heritage and Educational Studies, Foggia University, Via Arpi, 155\u2013176, 71121 Foggia, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1017\/S0142716400010122","article-title":"Characteristics of developmental dyslexia in a regular writing system","volume":"14","author":"Wimmer","year":"1993","journal-title":"Appl. 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