Phonological Processing In Children Research Articles

Orthographic influences on phonological processing in children with and without reading difficulties: an eye-tracking study

AbstractPhonological processing is an important contributor to decoding and spelling difficulties, but it does not fully explain word reading outcomes for all children. As orthographic knowledge is acquired, it influences phonological processing in typical readers. In the present study, we examined whether orthography affects phonological processing differently for children with current reading difficulties (RD), children with a history of reading difficulties who are currently presenting with typical word reading skills (Hx), and children with typical development and no history of reading difficulties (TD). School-aged children completed a phonological awareness task containing spoken words and pictures while eye movements were recorded. In this task, children had to pair a spoken stimulus word with one of four pictures that ended with the same sound. Within the task, stimulus-target picture pairs varied in the congruency and consistency of the orthographic and phonological mappings of their final consonant sounds. Eye movements revealed that children with typical word reading (the Hx and TD groups) showed better discrimination of the target from the foils compared to peers with underdeveloped word reading skills. All children were more accurate when stimulus-target pairs were congruent and consistent than when they were incongruent or inconsistent. Orthography plays an important role in the completion of phonological awareness tasks, even in the absence of written words and for children with a wide range of reading abilities. Results highlight the importance of considering orthography during interventions for phonological awareness and word reading.

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.

Visual attention and phonological processing in children with developmental language disorder

IntroductionDevelopmental Language Disorder (DLD) is a neurobiological condition characterized by insufficient language and communication development, with no underlying physical, sensory, or cognitive explanations. A prominent feature among children with DLD is their struggle with phonological processing, a pivotal skill for later reading proficiency. Recent research suggests that children with DLD may also exhibit impairments in various non-linguistic cognitive abilities, including memory, attention, and perception. Of particular importance is visual attention, which plays a critical role in integrating visual perceptual information with diverse cognitive and linguistic processes.ObjectiveTo characterize visual attention during phonological processing tasks in Colombian children with DLD.MethodologyThis study employed a cross-sectional descriptive experimental design involving 20 children diagnosed with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and 20 children without language difficulties. All participants underwent language, vocabulary, and phonological awareness tests. Additionally, an experimental task utilizing the eye-tracking method was designed and administered to measure phonological processing with phonological and lexical distractors.ResultsChildren with DLD exhibited diminished performance on phonological awareness tasks, as evidenced by their lower scores. This was further supported by the experimental phonological processing task, where an interference effect was observed in the presence of lexical distractors for word recognition, but not with phonological distractors.ConclusionChildren with DLD demonstrated deficiencies in both phonological awareness and visual attention skills during linguistic and phonological processing tasks. They also exhibit reduced sensitivity in identifying phonological relations such as rhyme. The study discusses these findings along with their clinical implications, emphasizing the importance of assessing online processing abilities in children with DLD and considering the influence of other cognitive abilities on their linguistic performance.

Assessing Phonological Processing in Children With Speech Sound Disorders

Purpose: Phonological processing skills, or using phoneme knowledge to process language, in preschool- and kindergarten-age children are an important indicator of children's future reading abilities. However, assessing phonological processing skills can be difficult in children with speech sound disorders because scoring often requires that children produce speech sound accurately. This tutorial presents assessment tasks that are appropriate for children with speech sound disorders to better identify children with phonological processing difficulties. Conclusions: The following phonological processing assessment tasks are recommended for children with speech sound disorders: receptive tasks for phonological awareness, the Syllable Repetition Task for phonological memory, and limited letter choices for rapid automatized naming in phonological retrieval tasks. These tasks can be modified for multilingual children. Appropriate assessment of phonological processing skills will help speech-language pathologists in differential diagnosis of children with true phonological processing difficulties and children whose speech sound errors may mask phonological processing abilities. Assessment of phonological processing skills is particularly important for children with speech sound disorders, whose speech errors may be evidence of phonological processing difficulties.

Non-game like training benefits spoken foreign-language processing in children with dyslexia.

Children with dyslexia often face difficulties in learning foreign languages, which is reflected as weaker neural activation. However, digital language-learning applications could support learning-induced plastic changes in the brain. Here we aimed to investigate whether plastic changes occur in children with dyslexia more readily after targeted training with a digital language-learning game or similar training without game-like elements. We used auditory event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically, the mismatch negativity (MMN), to study learning-induced changes in the brain responses. Participants were 24 school-aged Finnish-speaking children with dyslexia and 24 age-matched typically reading control children. They trained English speech sounds and words with "Say it again, kid!" (SIAK) language-learning game for 5 weeks between ERP measurements. During the game, the players explored game boards and produced English words aloud to score stars as feedback from an automatic speech recognizer. To compare the effectiveness of the training type (game vs. non-game), we embedded in the game some non-game levels stripped of all game-like elements. In the dyslexia group, the non-game training increased the MMN amplitude more than the game training, whereas in the control group the game training increased the MMN response more than the non-game training. In the dyslexia group, the MMN increase with the non-game training correlated with phonological awareness: the children with poorer phonological awareness showed a larger increase in the MMN response. Improved neural processing of foreign speech sounds as indicated by the MMN increase suggests that targeted training with a simple application could alleviate some spoken foreign-language learning difficulties that are related to phonological processing in children with dyslexia.

Phonological Priming in Children with Developmental Language Disorder

<p>本研究利用跨模式圖字干擾作業探討與比較習華語發展性語言障礙兒童(DLD)和典型發展兒童(TD)在音節、聲調與次音節單位（聲母及韻母）的音韻促發效應，以更深入了解兒童音韻表徵的型態及處理歷程。共有16名4至6歲11個月的DLD兒童和16名與其性別和年齡配對的TD兒童。促發項之音韻類型包括同音節、同聲母、同韻母、同聲調及無關項；促發項相對於目標項所呈現的時間為前150毫秒(SOA -150)、同時(SOA 0)及後150毫秒(SOA +150)。研究結果指出：(1)TD兒童的反應速度和正確率優於DLD兒童；(2)兩組兒童皆呈現同音節促進效應，且均無同聲調促進效應，代表華語兒童詞彙提取歷程中已具有音節框架的存在，而聲調對於詞彙提取的貢獻有限；(3)兩組主要的差異在次音節單位，DLD兒童在SOA -150和SOA +150時均呈現同韻母促進效應，而TD兒童僅在SOA 0呈現同聲母抑制效應。據此推論DLD兒童在次音節單位的處理方式與TD兒童不同，TD兒童可能是採用Cohort model的處理模式，而DLD兒童則未使用或尚未發展成熟到能使用此處理模式，其依賴語音知覺顯著性較高的韻母協助詞彙提取。整體而言，DLD兒童音韻處理歷程較無效率，顯現出詞彙提取困難。綜上推論，建議教學與臨床治療需重視DLD兒童詞彙提取與音韻處理能力之評估與訓練。</p> <p> </p><p>Phonological priming with cross-modal picture-word interference task was used to in-vestigate the phonological processing in children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Sixteen children with DLD aged 4 to 6 years and 11 months, and 16 gender- and age-matched children with typical development (TD) were recruited. The target words were paired with 6 types of phonological primes (identical, syllable-related, onset-related, rhyme-related, tone-related, unrelated), and primes were presented 150ms before (SOA -150), simultaneously (SOA 0), or 150ms after (SOA +150) the target. Results showed that (1) the TD group performed faster and more accurately than the DLD group; (2) both groups demonstrated syllable priming and lack tone priming at all SOAs, which suggests children selected a syllable frame in the lexical access process and the contribution of tone is limited; (3) the primary differences between these two groups were at sub-syllabic level. The DLD group exhibited rhyme priming at SOA -150 and SOA +150, while the TD group only ex-hibited onset interference at SOA 0. Based on these results, the possible inference was that children with TD may apply Cohort model to perceive incoming phonological information, however, children with DLD may not utilize this manner or they were not mature enough to use it, and their word retrieval process depended on high-saliency rhyme. Overall, the phonological processing in children with DLD was inefficient, and they revealed word re-trieval difficulty. Thus, it is recommended to evaluate and intervene word retrieval and phonological processing in children with DLD.</p> <p> </p>

Neural dissociation of visual attention span and phonological deficits in developmental dyslexia: A hub-based white matter network analysis.

It has been suggested that developmental dyslexia may have two dissociable causes-a phonological deficit and a visual attention span (VAS) deficit. Yet, neural evidence for such a dissociation is still lacking. This study adopted a data-driven approach to white matter network analysis to explore hubs and hub-related networks corresponding to VAS and phonological accuracy in a group of French dyslexic children aged from 9 to 14 years. A double dissociation in brain-behavior relations was observed. Structural connectivity of the occipital-parietal network surrounding the left superior occipital gyrus hub accounted for individual differences in dyslexic children's VAS, but not in phonological processing accuracy. In contrast, structural connectivity of two networks: the temporal-parietal-occipital network surrounding the left middle temporal gyrus hub and the frontal network surrounding the left medial orbital superior frontal gyrus hub, accounted for individual differences in dyslexic children's phonological processing accuracy, but not in VAS. Our findings provide evidence in favor of distinct neural circuits corresponding to VAS and phonological deficits in developmental dyslexia. The study points to connectivity-constrained white matter subnetwork dysfunction as a key principle for understanding individual differences of cognitive deficits in developmental dyslexia.

Acoustic-Lexical Characteristics of Child-Directed Speech Between 7 and 24 Months and Their Impact on Toddlers' Phonological Processing.

Speech-language input from adult caregivers is a strong predictor of children's developmental outcomes. But the properties of this child-directed speech are not static over the first months or years of a child's life. This study assesses a large cohort of children and caregivers (n = 84) at 7, 10, 18, and 24 months to document (1) how a battery of phonetic, phonological, and lexical characteristics of child-directed speech changes in the first 2 years of life and (2) how input at these different stages predicts toddlers' phonological processing and vocabulary size at 2 years. Results show that most measures of child-directed speech do change as children age, and certain characteristics, like hyperarticulation, actually peak at 24 months. For language outcomes, children's phonological processing benefited from exposure to longer (in phonemes) words, more diverse word types, and enhanced coarticulation in their input. It is proposed that longer words in the input may stimulate children's phonological working memory development, while heightened coarticulation simultaneously introduces important sublexical cues and exposes them to challenging, naturalistic speech, leading to overall stronger phonological processing outcomes.

Neurite density and arborization is associated with reading skill and phonological processing in children

BackgroundStudies exploring neuroanatomic correlates of reading have associated white matter tissue properties with reading disability and related componential skills (e.g., phonological and single-word reading skills). Mean diffusivity (MD) and fractional anisotropy (FA) are widely used surrogate measures of tissue microstructure with high sensitivity; however, they lack specificity for individual microstructural features. Here we investigated neurite features with higher specificity in order to explore the underlying microstructural architecture. MethodsDiffusion weighted images (DWI) and a battery of behavioral and neuropsychological assessments were obtained from 412 children (6 – 16 years of age). Neurite indices influenced by orientation and density were attained from 23 major white matter tracts. Partial correlations were calculated between neurite indices and indicators of phonological processing and single-word reading skills using age, sex, and image quality metrics as covariates. In addition, mediation analysis was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to evaluate the indirect effect of phonological processing on reading skills. ResultsWe observed that orientation dispersion index (ODI) and neurite density index (NDI) were negatively correlated with single-word reading and phonological processing skills in several tracts previously shown to have structural correlates with reading efficiency. We also observed a significant and substantial effect in which phonological processing mediated the relationship between neurite indices and reading skills in most tracts. ConclusionsIn sum, we established that better reading and phonological processing skills are associated with greater tract coherence (lower ODI) and lower neurite density (lower NDI). We interpret these findings as evidence that reading is associated with neural architecture and its efficiency.

The role of phonological processing in children from a national-type Chinese primary school in Malaysia: implications for dyslexia assessment

ABSTRACT The Malay language writing system is alphabetic and orthographically transparent. This study aimed to determine whether phonological processing skills predict Malay word-level literacy acquisition in Chinese children from a national-type Chinese primary school in Malaysia. A correlational study among 113 Year 1 Chinese children who are non-native speakers of Malay found that phonological awareness was the only significant predictor of Malay word-level literacy acquisition. The prominent role of phonological awareness among the non-native speakers further supports phonological processing deficit as an etiology of word-level literacy difficulties across languages. We conclude that since the non-native speakers rely exclusively on phonological decoding for word-level acquisition, the effect of a phonological deficit would be detrimental. Therefore, the Malay reading-related assessment battery in this study, now validated for both native and non-native speakers can be adapted as a universal early screening tool for detecting Malaysian children at-risk of dyslexia.

Rapid Automatized Naming and Explicit Phonological Processing in Children With Developmental Dyslexia: A Study With Portuguese-Speaking Children in Brazil.

Many studies have shown that children with reading difficulties present deficits in rapid automatized naming (RAN) and phonological awareness skills. The aim of this study was to examine RAN and explicit phonological processing in Brazilian Portuguese–speaking children with developmental dyslexia and to explore the ability of RAN to discriminate between children with and without dyslexia. Participants were 30 children with a clinical diagnosis of dyslexia established by the Brazilian Dyslexia Association and 30 children with typical development. Children were aged between 7 and 12, and groups were matched for chronological age and sex. They completed a battery of tests that are commonly used in Brazil for diagnosing dyslexia, consisting of the Wechsler Intelligence Test for Children (WISC-IV) as well as tests of single word and non-word reading, RAN, and the profile of phonological abilities test. Results indicate that the cognitive profile of this group of children, with a clinical diagnosis of dyslexia, showed preserved skills in the four subscales of the WISC-IV (verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed) and on the profile of phonological abilities test. Groups significantly differed on the reading tests (word and non-word) and RAN measures, with medium to large effect sizes for RAN. Classification and regression tree analysis revealed that RAN was a good predictor for dyslexia diagnosis, with an overall classification accuracy rate of 88.33%.

Cross-Language Influence of Phonological Processing Skills on Early Reading in Chinese-English Speaking Children

Empirical research shows the importance of phonological processing in children’s acquisition of reading skills. However, the cross-language relationship between first language and second language is still not clearly described especially in Malaysia’s multi-cultural context. This study examines the relations between phonological processing skills and early reading in children’s acquisition of Chinese (L1) and English (L2) as second languages. A total of 150 Chinese-speaking children (6 - 7 years old) participated and were administered measures of early reading and phonological processing skills in both L1 and L2. Within-language and cross-language structural equation, models (SEMs) were created to explore the causal relationships between phonological processing skills and early reading in both languages. Results indicated that among the three key skills of phonological processing, rapid automatic naming was the strongest predictor of Chinese early reading. In contrast, phonological awareness strongly predicted English early reading. Only English (L2) rapid automatic naming skills contributed to Chinese (L1) early reading. The cross-language transfer of English rapid automatic naming skills on Chinese (L1) early reading was found and reported. This study contributes to the development of models and theories of bilingual acquisition. It aims to design instructional programmes by considering these critical skills' contribution in enhancing successful reading in English as a second language

Neural correlates of phonological processing: Disrupted in children with dyslexia and enhanced in musically trained children

Phonological processing has been postulated as a core area of deficit among children with dyslexia. Reduced brain activation during phonological processing in children with dyslexia has been observed in left-hemispheric temporoparietal regions. Musical training has shown positive associations with phonological processing abilities, but the neural mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unspecified. The present research aims to distinguish neural correlates of phonological processing in school-age typically developing musically trained children, musically untrained children, and musically untrained children with dyslexia utilizing fMRI. A whole-brain ANCOVA, accounting for gender and nonverbal cognitive abilities, identified a main effect of group in bilateral temporoparietal regions. Subsequent region-of-interest analyses replicated temporoparietal hypoactivation in children with dyslexia relative to typically developing children. By contrast, musically trained children showed greater bilateral activation in temporoparietal regions when compared to each musically untrained group. Therefore, musical training shows associations with enhanced bilateral activation of left-hemispheric regions known to be important for reading. Findings suggest that engagement of these regions through musical training may underlie the putative positive effects of music on reading development. This supports the hypothesis that musical training may facilitate the development of a bilateral compensatory neural network, which aids children with atypical function in left-hemispheric temporoparietal regions.

Expressive Morphological Skills of Dual Language Learning and Monolingual German Children: Exploring Links to Duration of Preschool Attendance, Classroom Quality, and Classroom Composition.

A growing body of research has been documenting environmental factors that support preschoolers’ vocabulary skills. However, less is known about how environmental factors are related to morphological skills of dual language learners (DLLs) and single language learners (SLLs). We examined connections with preschool experiences by investigating the effects of duration of preschool attendance, classroom quality, and classroom composition variables (percentage of DLLs and percentage of children from families with a low socio-economic status) on preschoolers’ expressive morphological skills. Several multilevel regression models were estimated using cross-sectional data from 835 children (n = 255 DLLs) aged 30–47 months. These children were nested in 169 preschool classrooms in Germany. As a control task, we also investigated children’s phonological processing abilities, for which we found, as expected, no differences between DLLs and SLLs. Our main finding was that DLL children scored lower in expressive morphological skills than their German monolingual peers, but this difference was considerably smaller in classrooms that scored high in instructive teacher–child interactions (measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System for pre-kindergarten children; CLASS Pre-K). Taken together, these results support the notion that supportive teacher–child instructive interactions have a positive impact on the development of DLLs’ morphological skills.

Phonological processing in children with specific reading disorder versus typical learners: Factor structure and measurement invariance in a transparent orthography.

Although children with specific reading disorder (RD) have often been compared to typically achieving children on various phonological processing tasks, to our knowledge no study so far has examined whether the structure of phonological processing applies to both groups of children alike. According to Wagner and Torgesen (1987), phonological processing consists of 3 distinct constructs: phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), and the phonological loop (PL) of working memory. The present study examined whether this phonological processing model which was originally developed for English orthography is also applicable to a more transparent language such as German. Furthermore, we tested whether the structure of phonological processing is invariant across typically achieving children and children with RD. Therefore, 209 German-speaking 3rd graders (100 typical learners and 109 children with RD) completed a comprehensive test battery assessing PA, RAN, and PL. Using confirmatory factor analyses, we compared the latent structure of these phonological processing skills across both groups. The study yielded 3 important findings: First, Wagner and Torgesen’s (1987) model transfers to the German language and its orthography with transparent grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences. Second, the tripartite structure of phonological processing was evident across both groups (factorial invariance). Third, group invariance was also found for the measurement and structural components of the model (measurement invariance). These findings suggest that the nature of phonological processing is invariant across typically achieving children and children with RD acquiring the transparent orthography of German. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

A role for putamen in phonological processing in children

Bilingual children are required to successfully develop phonological skills in two languages, yet little is known about the neural correlates associated with them. We obtained structural imaging data from 30 Hindi–English children aged between 8 and 10 years and used voxel based morphometry to explore neuroanatomical correlates of behavioural measures of phonological awareness. Our results showed that phonological skills in English are predicted by grey matter volume of bilateral putamen, but solely by right putamen in Hindi. Post-hoc analysis revealed that English nonword reading correlates with grey matter volume in bilateral putamen while in Hindi nonword reading it correlates only with right putamen. These differences in putamen-based mechanisms indicate that syllable level awareness sufficiently supports early literacy in the transparent, alphasyllabic Hindi orthography whereas that in English requires both phonemic and syllabic level awareness. Our findings point towards a key role for putamen in mediating phonological and reading skills in children.

Phonological processing in children with specific language impairment with and without reading difficulties.

Specific language impairment (SLI) is heterogeneous and identifying subgroups within it may help explain the aetiology of the condition. Phonological processing abilities distinguish between children with SLI who do and do not have reading decoding impairments (RDIs). To probe different levels of phonological processing in children with SLI with and without RDI to investigate the cognitive basis of these differences. A total of 64 children aged 5-17 years were classified using the results of standardized language and single-word reading tests into those with no SLI and no RDI (No SLI/No RDI) (N = 18), no SLI but with RDI (No SLI/RDI) (N = 4, not included in analyses because of the small number), SLI/No RDI (N = 20), and SLI/RDI (N = 22). The groups were compared on a range of tasks engaging different levels of phonological processing (input and output processing and phonological awareness). The SLI/RDI group was distinguished from the SLI/No RDI and No SLI/No RDI groups by more errors in the longer items in non-word repetition and by poorer phonological awareness. Non-word discrimination scores indicated a gradient of performance across groups that was not associated with a qualitatively different pattern of performance. This is the first study contrasting input and output processes associated with phonological processing. The results suggest that deficits in SLI plus RDI may be associated with impairment in actively maintaining phonological representations for phonological processing, which is not present in those without RDI and which leads to reading decoding difficulties.

Performance of Phonological Processing in Children with Attention Deficit Hiperactivity Disorder

Purpose: The objective of this study was to compare the performance of Phonological Processing (Phonological Awareness, Lexical Acess and Working Memory) between children with ADHD and children with typical development. Methods: Participated in this study, 30 school aged children of both genders aged between 9 - 12 years, divided into 2 groups: Experimental Group (EG), 15 children with ADHD combined type and, Control Group (CG), 15 children with typical development, who attended elementary school in public and private education. The instruments utilized were: Phonological Awareness Test—Sequential Assessment Tool (CONFIAS); Rapid automatic Naming Testd); and Proof of repetition of nonsense words (Kessler, 1997). Results: The results revealed differences between in the instruments used. Conclusion: Regarding the performance of Phonological Processing, the children with ADHD showed lower performance in Phonological Awareness, Access to Lexical and Phonological Memory compared to children with typical development.

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.