The Effect of Speech Sound Disorders on Language, Literacy, and Nonverbal Mathematical Thinking Skills of 6-Year-Old Children

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of speech sound disorders on the development of language, literacy, and nonverbal mathematical thinking skills. Methods: 1,474 children who participated in both the ‘Three-Sentence-Screening Test for Korean speech sound disorders’ and ‘Academic Skills: Language and Literacy Ability, and Non-Language Mathematical Thinking’ as part of the Panel Study on Korean Children (7th year, age 6) were targeted. Through the ‘Three-Sentence-Screening Test for Korean speech sound disorders’, the severity of speech sound disorder was classified into four groups (general, slight speech error, recommendation of deep examination, and suspected articulation disorder); and scores for three academic abilities (language and literacy, non-verbal mathematical thinking) measurement variables were compared through multivariate analysis (MANOVA) and one-way analysis (ANOVA). Results: At the age of 6, it was confirmed that the severity of speech sound disorders had a significant effect on all aspects of language, literacy, and non-verbal mathematical thinking skills. Conclusion: The results of these studies are consistent with the results of existing studies that have found that speech sound disorders acted as a variable affecting language, literacy, and mathematical thinking in existing studies. Therefore, it may be necessary to identify children with speech sound disorders early in the pre-school age period and to observe their language and academic ability more carefully to support them.