Precursors of Dyslexia in Early Conversational Turn Exchange

Abstract

This study investigated conversational timing patterns among 22 children aged 3 years as each interacted with an adult. Most of the children were at high familial risk for dyslexia. When reading was tested in grade school, a group of 11 children was found to have dyslexia and the remaining 11 children read normally. At the age of 3 years, the 2 groups showed different patterns of timing in conversation. In comparison with children without dyslexia, those with dyslexia were significantly more likely to wait for adults to finish their speaking turn, and then offer a response that was semantically related to the adult's speech. The 2 groups did not differ in the percentage of no-responses defined as an absence of speech during the 2 seconds following the completion of an adult speaking turn. The results are discussed in terms of speech timing during child–adult interaction and spoken language deficits in dyslexia.