Rapid automatic switching (RAS)

Rapid Automatic Switching (RAS) - Letters, colors, and shapes are located in different areas of the brain, so when you switch from colors or shapes to letters and back again it’s referred to as RAS. 

RAS activities can help teachers identify retrieval challenges that may interfere in students’ process of reading. Such activities involve connecting visual, verbal, attentional, and cognitive processes. Letter names are not accessed in the same location in the brain as colors, or shapes RAS (rapid automatic switching) shows how well students can make the switch from colors or shapes to letters, and back again.  

A rapid, alternating stimulus (RAS) naming measure was designed to study the developing ability in dyslexic readers to direct attention to contextual patterns while performing a rapid serial naming task. The results from a 3-year longitudinal investigation of 98 children indicate three trends. RAS performances differentiate both average from impaired readers and dyslexic subgroups from each other. The largest, most impaired subgroup can not complete the RAS tasks in kindergarten; the smaller subgroups have little name access speed deficits. Early RAS performances are highly predictive of later reading, particularly at the single-word reading level. Implications for understanding the development of automaticity and the relationship between retrieval speed and reading are discussed.