ABSTRACT Objective: to describe the occurrence of self-correction among adolescents in the rapid automatic naming test and the influence of schooling, type of visual stimulation and cognitive and language skills. Methods: 83 typical adolescents from 11 to 16 years old, enrolled from 6th to 9th grade of two public schools in Belo Horizonte participated in the study. The following tests were applied: rapid automatic naming, NEUPSILIN Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Instrument and Boston Naming. During rapid naming, substitutions and self-correction were accounted for. The variation in the number of errors, with and without self-correction, was related to schooling, functions and skills evaluated. Appropriate statistical tests were applied, adopting a significance level lower than 0.05. Results: individuals who made no mistakes had a better performance in attention, executive functions, memory, and vocabulary than those who made. Adolescents who performed self-correction were better at attention than those who did not correct themselves. Non-alphanumeric stimuli presented a higher occurrence of self-correction. Non-alphanumeric and alphanumeric tasks differed in terms of number of errors, both with and without self-correction. Adolescents from the early and late years of middle school differed regarding self-correction in the task of naming letters. Conclusion: self-correction was frequent in the evaluated sample and differentiated the group of adolescents who self-corrected or not, regarding attention, executive functions and vocabulary.