Phonological Processing Skills of Children with Phonological Delay and Phonological Disorder

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the phonological processing skills between children with phonological delay and phonological disorder compared to those of typically developing children. This study aimed to explore whether children with phonological delay and phonological disorder show general or specific weakness on phonological processing skills and if the phonological processing skills can differentiate children with phonological delay from children with phonological disorder. Methods: The participants were 27 children with speech sound disorders (SSDs) and 20 typically developing children. Children with SSDs consisted of 10 children with phonological delay and 17 children with phonological disorder. The tasks for phonological processing skills involved phonological awareness at the levels of word, syllable, body-coda, and phoneme; phonological memory tests including nonword repetition and sentence repetition; and phonological retrieval through rapid automatized number naming test. Results: Children with phonological disorder showed significantly lower phonological awareness at word level than typically developing children and they also exhibited significantly lower nonword repetition than children with phonological delay as well as typically developing children. Both children with phonological delay and disorder performed less well on rapid automatized naming than typically developing children. Conclusion: This study suggests that children with phonological disorder are at higher risk for deficits in phonological processing, and their weakness in nonword repetition which taps phonological memory is more prominent than in children with normal speech or phonological delay.