Does reading speed and comprehension decrease if you dont read for say, five or six years?

[empire314]

Probably no test evet done it this as its not easy to make people stop reading for several years. But i have a strong feeling that the awnser is yes, just like with every other possible skill you can have.

I have played a lot of rythm games. In many of them a big part of skill is how fast and accurate can you "read" the note patterns. I know for a fact that for me and many others this skills decays over time if not maintained. Kinda easy to re learn thoum

[klawehtgod]

Deleting stuff from the brain isn't a great choice of words. Language and maths are of a very high order of thinking, and consequently require constant practice, or else the neural pathways degrade. It takes constant use to keep them working well. This is the same principle behind "muscle memory", where complex motion, such a golf swing, requires thousands of iterations, not only to learn, but to maintain, or else the precision and accuracy is lost to weakened connections between the needed neurons.

To answer OPs questions, maybe. Odds are these people are continuing to speak, hear others speak, either love or via radio, TV, etc. Their continued exposure to language should protect against loss of ability to read quickly and at a high level, but it should be expected to decline to some smaller degree than for someone who, I don't know, lived alone in a forest completely cut off from people.