COULD EARLY LITERACY SCORES AFFECT THE DIAGNOSIS OF SPECIFIC LEARNING DISORDER IN CHILDREN AT RISK

Abstract

Background and objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the early literacy skills of pre-school children at risk of Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) by comparing Test of Early Literacy (TEL) scores between three groups including the siblings of children with SLD, children with speech disorder and healthy controls. Methods: Children between the age of 60-72 months were recruited. The total number of participants was 81. A sociodemographic Data Form, the Colored Progressive Matrices Test (CPM) and TEL were applied to all participants. Results: A significant difference was determined between the performance of the three groups in all sub-tests of TEL. The children with speech disorder displayed the worst score in all sub-tests except vocabulary; this was followed by the siblings of children with SLD while the control group displayed the highest scores. Conclusion: The current study is the first investigating the TEL scores of pre-school children using a transparent language like Turkish at risk of SLD. The risky group with a language disorder showed the worst performance in almost all subtests examined. It is critical to start interventions early, assuming that this group will be at highest risk in the future.