Language, analogical reasoning, and working memory skills in emergent literacy period: Typical and DLD trajectories via Cluster Analyses

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to compare emergent literacy profiles among Spanish-speaking preschoolers with and without developmental language disorders (DLD), based on phonological and lexical skills, working memory (WM), and analogical reasoning (AR, including verbal and nonverbal). The study sample was composed of 123 children aged 47- 62 months (age group 1 or G1:M = 55.09, SD = 4.52; 61 boys, 62 girls) and 115 children aged 63–78 months (age group 2 or G2:M = 69.27, SD = 4.16; 54 boys, 61 girls). We compared the performance by age group in all measures, after which hierarchical cluster analyses using emergent literacy scores were performed for each age group. The linguistic and cognitive factors of the resulting clusters were compared using the Kruskal-Wallis test and pairwise comparison. Cluster analysis yielded 3 clusters in each age group that significantly differed on linguistic and cognitive measures. The groups were identified as high, mid, and low performance. DLD groups were associated with low performance in listening comprehension, lexical decision, and syllabification in G1 and lexical repetition and final sound in G2. The high-performance groups were associated with higher performance in syllabification, initial sound, and lexical repetition in G1 and listening comprehension in G2. The main differences between age groups were observed in syllabification and lexical decision. Furthermore, the results suggest that verbal AR and WM are positive markers of linguistic profiles in the youngest group, while only verbal AR appears relevant in the oldest group. These findings highlight the heterogeneity of emergent literacy profiles and may enhance the understanding of language and literacy development in typical and DLD Spanish-speaking children.