Inversion errors in Arabic number reading: Is there a nonsemantic route?

This article reports on a mildly aphasic patient with major disorders in reading, writing, and number processing. His predominant error type in reading aloud Arabic numbers and in marching heard numerals with is Arabic numbers was the violation of the inversion rule of the German Arabic number reading system. According to this rule most of the two-digit numbers or numbers in the find and prefinal position of longer digit strings have to be read beginning with the final digit (e.g., 26 --> sechsundzwanzig (literally translated: six-and-twenty)). It is argued that AT's inversion errors (e.g., 26 --> zweiundsechzig (literally translated: two-and-sixty)) are not consistent with the predictions of single route models of Arabic number reading but are in agreement with proposals of a visually based asemantic reading routine in addition to a semantically mediated reading routine. (C) 1997 Academic Press.