Phonological Processing Skills In Children Research Articles

Amplitude rise time sensitivity in children with and without dyslexia: differential task effects and longitudinal relations to phonology and literacy.

The speech amplitude envelope carries important acoustic information required for speech intelligibility and contains sensory cues (amplitude rise times, ARTs) that play a key role in both sensory rhythm perception and neural speech encoding. Individual differences in children's sensitivity to ARTs have been related to the development of children's phonological processing skills across languages by the Temporal Sampling theory. Impaired processing of ARTs also characterises children with dyslexia. However, different ART tasks have been employed in different studies, in different languages, and at different ages. Here, we compare the sensitivity of three frequently used ART tasks (based on synthetic syllables, sine tones, and speech-shaped noise) in a longitudinal study of English-speaking children with and without dyslexia. Children's ability to discriminate rising frequency, duration, and intensity was also tested. ART discrimination in all 3 tasks was significantly inter-related, but different relations to phonology and literacy were found for different ART tasks at different ages. In particular, the often-used sine tone and speech-shaped noise ART tasks showed greater sensitivity in older children, while the synthetic syllable task (/ba/ rise) showed greater sensitivity in younger children. Sensitivity to rising frequency was also related to phonology and literacy across ages. The data are interpreted with respect to the Temporal Sampling theory of developmental dyslexia.

Proposta de intervenção fonoaudiológica em grupo de crianças com mau desempenho escolar

ABSTRACT Purpose: to present and critically discuss a collective care program to address phonological processing skills in children with poor school performance. Methods: an observational study with a non-probability sample of children aged 7 to 10 years with poor school performance, carried out in three stages: (1) development of the group speech-language-hearing intervention program, (2) application of the preliminary proposal to children with poor school performance, and (3), critical analysis of the results and feasibility of the program. The McNemar and Cochran Q tests were used to verify the association between the results before and after group speech-language-hearing intervention, with a p-value of ( 0.05 being considered statistically significant. Results: the group speech-language-hearing intervention program demonstrated the importance of structural planning, including the preparation, development, and progression of activities to stimulate phonological processing skills and their positive influence on the learning process. It can be used as a therapeutic resource for children with poor school performance, besides the possibilities and challenges of collective care. Conclusion: the proposal demonstrated its applicability to improve phonological processing skills and enhance therapeutic effects in children presented with poor school performance.

Phonological processing skills in children with speech sound disorder: A multiple case study approach.

Children with speech sound disorder (SSD) are at increased risk of reading difficulties due to poor phonological processing skills. However, the extent to which children with SSD demonstrate weaknesses on specific or all phonological processing tasks is not well understood. To examine the phonological processing abilities of a clinically identified sample of children with SSD, with and without reading difficulties. To determine the extent to which the proportion of children with concomitant SSD and reading difficulties exhibited weaknesses in specific areas of phonological processing, or a more general phonological deficit. Data were obtained from 157 school-aged children (Mage = 77 months, SD = 7.01) in receipt of school-based speech therapy. Approximately 25% of the sample was identified as poor readers, based on a standardized measure of word decoding. We compared the proportion of children who scored at or below 1 SD below the mean, or the bottom 16th percentile, on measures of phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and verbal short-term memory among those identified as poor readers and good readers. Children with SSD demonstrated a range of phonological processing difficulties, particularly on the measure of verbal short-term memory. No specific skill differentiated groups of children with SSD with and without reading difficulties; however, those classified as poor readers on the word-decoding measure exhibited more widespread difficulties, even after controlling for language ability. Results support a cumulative risk model such that children with SSD and reading difficulties are likely to demonstrate generally poor phonological processing abilities. What is already known on the subject Children with SSD are at heightened risk of reading difficulties, particularly if their SSD persists into school age. However, not all children with SSD experience reading problems. Research aimed at determining which children are at the highest risk is mixed as to how best to identify which children with SSD are most likely to experience reading difficulties. What this paper adds to existing knowledge The study used a multiple case study approach to determine if performance on phonological processing skills might differentiate children with SSD who were poor readers from those who were good readers. As a group, children with SSD exhibited poor verbal short-term memory but relatively intact rapid automatized naming skills. No one phonological processing skill differentiated children who were poor readers from good readers. However, children with reading difficulties appeared to experience more general difficulties across phonological processing tasks, even after controlling for language abilities. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? A single deficit (i.e., speech sound production) is not sufficient data to make a complete diagnosis or treatment decisions. Multiple sources of data, including several aspects of phonological processing, should be obtained to understand reading risk in children with SSD.

Contributions of executive functions and linguistic skills to verbal fluency in children

ABSTRACT Despite the widespread use of verbal fluency (VF) tasks in child neuropsychological research and clinical practice, the contribution of executive and linguistic processes to variability in children’s fluency performance is still unclear. This is particularly important when considering the development of orthographic knowledge and semantic network during childhood. The present study investigated the contributions of executive functions and linguistic skills to performance in VF tasks in children. We examined the contributions of basic executive functions (i.e.,inhibitory control, working memory, and flexibility) and high-order executive functions (i.e., planning), vocabulary, lexical access speed, and phonological awareness to VF performance in 111 typically developing children (8–10 years old). Multiple regression analyses showed that phonological awareness was a predictor of performance in phonemic verbal fluency (PVF), and lexical access speed was the best predictor of performance in semantic verbal fluency (SVF). Among the executive function components, working memory was a predictor of performance in PVF and most categories of SVF (except animal fluency). In addition to working memory resources (i.e., a basic executive function), planning (i.e., a high-level executive function) was also recruited in the clothing category of SVF. These results highlight the importance of phonological processing skills in children’s performance on VF tasks and show similarities and differences in the contributions of various linguistic and executive skills to PVF and SVF. These findings have implications for interpreting the results of these measures in research and clinical practice.

The Influence of Early Hearing-Aid Use on Receptive Vocabulary and Phonological Processing Skills in Children with Cochlear Implants

The Influence of Early Hearing-Aid Use on Receptive Vocabulary and Phonological Processing Skills in Children with Cochlear Implants

Associations among nonword repetition and phonemic and vocabulary awareness: Implications for intervention

Prior research has shown possible relations among nonword repetition (NWR), vocabulary, and phonological processing skills in children with and without language impairment. This study was designed to investigate whether relationships would differ for students with primary language impairment (PLI) and typical language (TL) and whether they would shift across the school-age years, with implications for setting intervention priorities. NWR performance was compared for school-age students with PLI ( n = 36) and TL ( n = 36), matched for age, sex, race/ethnicity, and home language experience at three grade level bands (grades 1–2, 3–5, and 6–12). Both groups also completed tests of vocabulary awareness and phonological awareness to investigate them as predictors of performance on the NWR task. The two groups differed significantly with large effect sizes on the NWR task, as well as on vocabulary awareness and phonological awareness tasks. Regression analyses supported different predictive models for students with TL and PLI, with vocabulary awareness predicting significant variance in NWR for the TL students, but not for those with PLI. Conversely, phonological awareness, but not vocabulary awareness, predicted NWR for the students with PLI. Controlling for age did not change the regression models. Results support a view that phonological processing difficulties may function as a specific limiting factor for students with PLI, influencing their ability to learn new vocabulary as well as vice versa. These results have implications for designing treatment aimed explicitly at helping children connect sublexical aspects of word structure knowledge with word meaning.

Computer-assisted training of phoneme–grapheme correspondence for children who are deaf and hard of hearing: Effects on phonological processing skills

ObjectiveExamine deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children's phonological processing skills in relation to a reference group of children with normal hearing (NH) at two baselines pre intervention. Study the effects of computer-assisted phoneme–grapheme correspondence training in the children. Specifically analyze possible effects on DHH children's phonological processing skills. MethodsThe study included 48 children who participated in a computer-assisted intervention study, which focuses on phoneme–grapheme correspondence. Children were 5, 6, and 7 years of age. There were 32 DHH children using cochlear implants (CI) or hearing aids (HA), or both in combination, and 16 children with NH. The study had a quasi-experimental design with three test occasions separated in time by four weeks; baseline 1 and 2 pre intervention, and 3 post intervention. Children performed tasks measuring lexical access, phonological processing, and letter knowledge. All children were asked to practice ten minutes per day at home supported by their parents. ResultsNH children outperformed DHH children on the majority of tasks. All children improved their accuracy in phoneme–grapheme correspondence and output phonology as a function of the computer-assisted intervention. For the whole group of children, and specifically for children with CI, a lower initial phonological composite score was associated with a larger phonological change between baseline 2 and post intervention. Finally, 18 DHH children, whereof 11 children with CI, showed specific intervention effects on their phonological processing skills, and strong effect sizes for their improved accuracy of phoneme–grapheme correspondence. ConclusionFor some DHH children phonological processing skills are boosted relatively more by phoneme–grapheme correspondence training. This reflects the reciprocal relationship between phonological change and exposure to and manipulations of letters.

Phonological processing skills in specific language impairment

In order to provide effective intervention for children with specific language impairment (SLI), it is crucial that there is an understanding of the underlying deficit in SLI. This study utilized a battery of phonological processing tasks to compare the phonological processing skills of children with SLI to typically-developing peers matched for age or language. The children with SLI had significantly poorer performance than age-matched peers on measures of phonological representations, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, phonological short-term memory, and one measure of working memory. Of particular significance, the SLI group also demonstrated significantly weaker performance than language-matched peers on one measure of phonological representations, and one measure of working memory. The findings provide some support for a phonological processing account of SLI and highlight the utility of using tasks that draw on a comprehensive model of speech processing to profile and consider children's phonological processing skills in detail.

A Comparison of Phonological Processing Skills of Children With Mild to Moderate Sensorineural Hearing Loss and Children With Dyslexia

Using the comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes (Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999), the researchers compared strengths and weaknesses in phonological processing skills in three groups: 21 children with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss (MSNH group), 29 children with dyslexia, and 30 age-matched controls. The MSNH group showed phonological deficits that were restricted to phonological awareness tasks (elision/blending) and a phonological memory task (nonword repetition), yet exhibited unimpaired rapid naming ability. Children with dyslexia showed deficits in all 3 phonological constructs. Finally, both degree of hearing loss and age at which hearing loss was identified in the MSNH group were related to the children's phonological processing skills. Because of their deteriorated phonological skills, children with MSNH may be at risk of starting school with weaknesses in early literacy skills. Implications for practice aimed at improving phonological and literacy skills of these children are described.

Development of Phonological Processing Skills in Children With Specific Language Impairment With and Without Literacy Delay: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study

To compare the development of phonological skills in children with specific language impairment (SLI) with and without literacy delay and to examine whether kindergarten phonological skills could discriminate these 2 groups. In a longitudinal study, 8 children with SLI and literacy delay, 10 children with SLI and normal literacy, and 14 typically developing children were studied from the last year of kindergarten to the start of Grade 3. A wide range of phonological tasks (phonological awareness [PA], verbal short-term memory [vSTM], and rapid automatized naming [RAN]) were administered yearly. The SLI group with literacy delay scored significantly lower than the typically developing children on almost all phonological tasks in all grades, whereas the SLI group with normal literacy scored significantly lower only on demanding PA and vSTM tasks. A combination of kindergarten PA and RAN skills could correctly classify 75% of the children with SLI. By including vSTM, the discriminatory value did not increase. Children with SLI and normal literacy at age 8;1 [years;months] continued to have difficulties with demanding PA and vSTM tasks. Children with SLI and poor PA and RAN in kindergarten were at high risk of developing literacy problems in a transparent orthography.

Schulbildung der Mütter und phonologische Verarbeitungsfähigkeiten der Kinder im Vorschulalter

1.: Children's language skills seem to depend on their mothers' level of academic education; 2.: phonological processing, i. e. processing information in terms of acoustic signals with linguistic content, seems to act as an accelerator in the development of language skills. Based on these premises the aim of this study was to evaluate whether there is a correlation between the maternal level of academic education and low level phonological processing skills in children. 203 preschool-children aged 5;0 to 5;11 years were enrolled in this study. Low level phonological processing was probed using minimal pairs for both words and nonwords (logatoms). The items were chosen with respect to age appropriate vocabulary, phoneme features, phoneme contrast and phoneme position. Children, whose mothers were more highly educated, showed better results in low level phonological processing tasks than children of mothers with lower levels of academic education. Our results confirm the hypothesis that there is a correlation between a mother's level of academic education and the phonological processing skills of her child. This could also explain why children whose parents possess a higher level of education often demonstrate better linguistic skills. However, further studies are needed to clarify whether other factors act as a dependant variable.

Phonological processing skills in children with myelomeningocele and shunted hydrocephalus

Phonological processing skills in children with myelomeningocele and shunted hydrocephalus

A longitudinal study of phonological processing skills in children learning to read in a second language.

English-speaking children (N = 122) in French immersion classes participated in a 1-year longitudinal study of the relation between phonological awareness and reading achievement in both languages. Participants were administered measures of word decoding and of phonological awareness in French and in English as well as measures of cognitive ability, speeded naming, and pseudoword repetition in English only. The relation of phonological awareness in French to reading achievement in each of the languages were equivalent to that in English. These relations remained significant after partialing out the influences of speeded naming and pseudoword repetition. Phonological awareness in both languages was specifically associated with 1-year increments in decoding skill in French. These findings support the transfer of phonological awareness skills across alphabetic languages.

A longitudinal study of phonological processing skills in children learning to read in a second language.

A longitudinal study of phonological processing skills in children learning to read in a second language.

The Role of Phonological Processing in Early Reading Ability: What We Can Learn From Chinese

Research has demonstrated that there is a strong relation between children's phonological processing skills and their ability to learn to read an alphabetic orthography. It is unclear whether this relation is specific to an alphabetic orthography or whether it extends as well to logographic orthographies such as Chinese. In this study, a group of Chinese 1st graders were administered three measures of phonological processing, including phonological memory, phonological awareness, and phonological retrieval. A visual memory task was also included. Two weeks later, the children were administered 2 reading tasks. One assessed their ability to read familiar and less familiar words printed in the Chinese alphabet. The other assessed their ability to read familiar and less familiar Chinese characters. Results showed that children's performance on the visual memory task was not related to their performance on either of the reading measures. In contrast, performance on the phonological measures was related to performance on both reading tasks. These results suggest that the relation between phonological processing skills and early reading ability is not specific to reading an alphabetic orthography. This relation extends to a logographic orthography as well.

Investigating speech processing skills in young children

ABSTRACT This paper stresses the need to refer to normal control data when assessing children with speech disorders. It is based on the findings of a completed, one‐year, full‐time research project designed to investigate the normal development of speech, auditory and rhyme skills within a psycholinguistic framework (Stackhouse & Wells, 1993). The aim of the project was to examine phonological processing skills in normally developing children for comparison with children presenting with speech, lexical and literacy disorders. A range of tasks was presented to 100 normally developing children, aged 3–7 years. The tasks included auditory discrimination, rhyme judgement, detection and production; speech repetition, naming and continuous speech. The tasks were presented in both visual and auditory modalities, and both real and non‐word stimuli were used. For each set of tasks stimuli were identical or closely matched, using phonetic criteria. Data was analysed for subjects within each age band, i.e. 3‐year‐olds, 4‐year‐olds, 5‐year‐olds, 6‐year‐olds and 7‐year‐olds. Analysis of variance revealed significant effects of age on all tasks. Comparisons were made of performance across the different presentations and stimuli‐type relevant to each task and significant effects of presentation and stimuli‐type were found for some tasks but not for all comparisons made. These findings allowed us to present a profile of normal development in performance across a range of input and output processing tasks. The time constraint prevents the full profile of results being included. However, the implications of the results for clinical practice will be presented. For example, given that normally developing children find non‐word repetition more difficult than real‐word repetition, at what point is the difference in performance on these tasks indicative of a motor programming deficit? Further, given the relationship between rhyme detection and production skills in normally developing children, at what age is the failure to produce any rhyming words significant? In summary, this study identified typical developmental profiles of phonological processing skills in children of 3–7 years of age. Speech and language therapists can use these results to identify with greater accuracy children with speech and language difficulties who may present with atypical psycholinguistic profiles. Subsequent therapy can be targeted in a more precise way.