Phonological Awareness Deficits Research Articles

Teleneuropsychology intervention in phonological awareness for children with specific learning disorder with reading and mathematical difficulties

Specific learning disorder (SLD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects 5–15% of school-aged children worldwide. Often, difficulties in reading (SLD-RD) and mathematics (SLD-MD) occur together. Deficits in phonological awareness (PA) have been identified as the common factor between the two difficulties. Intervention in PA has been shown to be effective in SLD-RD; however, it is not clear whether it is also effective in SLD-MD. Neuropsychological intervention is usually conducted face-to-face, but when the patient is in a remote location or during extraordinary situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, tele neuropsychology (TeleNP) may be a suitable alternative. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a telerehabilitation program for PA to improve math skills in children with SLD-RD/SLD-MD. The study had an N-of-1 SCED design, and included six children aged 10–12 years with SLD-RD/SLD-MD. After four baseline measurements with an arithmetic verification paradigm, they were treated with TeleNP-PA. The effect on each participant was evaluated using visual analysis and the reliable change index. After the intervention, all participants showed improvement in arithmetic tasks, suggesting that the PA intervention had a positive influence on these skills.

Effect of Phonological Awareness-Focused Interventions on Phonological Errors and Phonemic Awareness in Young School-Age Children.

This study aimed to explore the effects of an integrated phonological awareness intervention on phonological errors and phonemic awareness among young school-age children. Three children with at least one phonological error pattern and below-average phonological awareness skills participated in a non-concurrent multiple baseline single-subject design across participants' investigation. The integrated phonological awareness intervention consisted of completing blending and segmenting activities using 20 trained words, with a dose of 70 to 100 productions of the targeted phonological error pattern for 10, 30-minute sessions. All participants showed improvement in the primary dependent variable of percent consonants correct for their targeted error pattern for trained words. Results for percent phonemes correct showed gains for both blending and segmenting for all participants. All the participants transferred targeted skills to untrained words with their error pattern and generalized blending and segmenting to consonant-vowel-consonant words that did not contain their target error pattern in a pretest/posttest. Integrated phonological awareness intervention was an effective method of simultaneously improving speech production and phonemic awareness skills for young school-age children across 5 hours of treatment. The intervention was designed to be replicable by school-based speech-language pathologists seeking to efficiently support students with phonological errors and phonological awareness deficits.

Phonological awareness training and phonological therapy approaches for specific language impairment children with speech sound disorders: a comparative outcome study.

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) might present with speech sound disorder (SSD) and phonological awareness (PA) deficits which put them at risk of potential reading problems. This work aimed to organizean intervention program in Arabic forphonologicaltraining and to assess the effect of PA training versus the phonological therapy (PT) for children with SLI and SSD. The study was carried out on 60 children with comorbid SLI and SSD, aged 5-7 years. Children were equally divided into two groups; each group received language therapy combined with (PT or PA training). Measures of language development, phonological output, and PA were taken before therapy and at 4 month post-therapy for all children. The two therapy groups made nearly the same amount of progress in the development of language and phonological production, with no significant differences regarding language age and percent of consonants correct (PCC). The PA training group progressed more on the PA skills than children who received PT over the same time. PA training could facilitate the development of phonological skills by targeting the child's awareness of phonemes and improving the production of sound patterns.

Impact of Age on Reading Abilities in Egyptian Children with Unilateral Cochlear Implant

Abstract Background Reading problems means difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols. Children with cochlear implants generally suffer from reading problems which have been partly attributed to underlying deficit in phonological awareness. Chronological age represents important factor that affects their reading abilities. Aim of the Work This work aims to assess reading abilities in cochlear implant school children in order to highlight their reading problem profile, as to consider such problems in earlier years of life. This would subsequently solve their expected academic delay. Subjects and Methods This study was applied on 30 Egyptian Arabic-speaking children with unilateral cochlear implant in the age range between 5 to 11 years old. All of them underwent audiological evaluation, psychometric evaluation, Phonological Awareness Test, and Arabic Reading Screening Test (ARST). Results Analysis of the results of the participated children to the phonological awareness test and Arabic reading screening test, revealed that the majority of the studied patients were below the 5th percentile in all sub items of both tests. This indicates that cochlear implanted children have reading problems. There is positive correlation between most of subitems of both tests and chronological age of children. Conclusion and recommendation Cochlear implanted children had poor scores in phonological awareness test and Arabic reading screening test, their reading abilities were extremely impaired. Chronological age may be considered a factor that affects this relation. This higher susceptibility to reading problems as well as the importance of reading for their academic careers should be considered in their rehabilitation plan.

A Longitudinal Investigation of Code-Related Emergent Literacy Skills in Children Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing Across the Preschool Years.

The purpose of this longitudinal investigation was to compare the developmental trajectories of code-related emergent literacy skills of children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) who use amplification and spoken language across the preschool years. Thirty children who are DHH and 31 children with typical hearing completed a language and emergent literacy assessment at 6-month intervals from age 4 through 6 years. Growth curve analysis was used to compare developmental trajectories between groups of the code-related skills of phonological awareness, phonological memory, phonological recoding, alphabet knowledge, and conceptual print knowledge. Growth across the preschool years was observed on all code-related emergent literacy skills across groups. Children who are DHH scored consistently lower than children with typical hearing on phonological awareness, phonological memory, and conceptual print knowledge; no group differences were observed for phonological recoding or alphabet knowledge. No interactions of time and group were significant. Children who are DHH exhibit consistent deficits in phonological awareness, phonological memory, and conceptual print knowledge across the preschool years and begin formal literacy instruction with a weaker foundation in emergent literacy skills. Future work should focus on optimizing emergent literacy interventions for children who are DHH during the preschool years. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21998153.

Double-Deficit Hypothesis and Reading Difficulties: A Longitudinal Analysis of Reading and Reading Comprehension Performance of Groups Formed According to This Hypothesis

In this study, we aimed to determine the validity of the double-deficit hypothesis, which argues that reading difficulties arise due to inadequacies in phonological awareness and rapid naming, in relation to reading difficulties in a transparent language such as Turkish. Accordingly, children attending a kindergarten were assigned to four groups: a double-deficit group (n = 23), phonological awareness deficit group (n = 35), rapid naming deficit group (n = 29) or control group (n = 48) according to the scores they received on measures of phonological awareness and rapid naming. The performance of the groups in reading and reading comprehension was followed longitudinally from the first grade to the end of the second grade and were compared at four time points. On the basis of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), it was determined that the double-deficit group performed worst in reading and reading comprehension tasks, and the control group performed best. While the reading and reading comprehension achievements of all groups increased over time, the findings suggest that the performance of groups with phonological awareness and rapid naming deficits differed significantly from the double-deficit group and the control group. This study, which examined the effects of the double-deficit hypothesis for Turkish-speaking children, offers a new approach to identifying children at risk of reading difficulties in early years and to planning appropriate interventions.

The triple-deficit hypothesis in Arabic: Evidence from children with and without dyslexia

AbstractThis study investigated the triple-deficit hypothesis in Arabic, a Semitic transparent orthography, among 258 native Arabic children from Grade 3, divided into a typical readers group (n = 204) and a dyslexia group (n = 54). Children were tested on word- and pseudoword-reading accuracy, word-reading fluency, phonological awareness (PA), naming speed (NS), orthographic processing (OP), and nonverbal reasoning ability. The results indicated that all children with dyslexia had either double or triple deficits, and none of them had a single deficit. Children with triple deficits showed lower performance than children with single and no deficits on all the reading measures. They have also lower performance to children with double deficits on word-reading accuracy but comparable scores in word- and pseudoword-reading fluency. In addition, OP was confirmed as an additional independent predictor of word-level reading skills besides PA and NS, while controlling for age and nonverbal intelligence. The classification findings showed that the presence of a triple deficit maximizes the risk of reading failure. These findings support the additive nature of combined deficits in PA, NS, and OP. Moreover, they establish the benefit of including OP as a third deficit, in addition to PA and NS, underlying dyslexia in Arabic.

Rapid automatic naming and phonological awareness deficits in preschool children with probable developmental coordination disorder.

Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have been reported to have a higher risk of dyslexia than children with typical development (TD). Phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatic naming (RAN) are known to be predictive of children’s reading development. The present study examined PA and RAN in preschool children with and without probable DCD in Taiwan. In total, 704 children aged 5–6 years old from 25 preschools in Taichung City were included as participants. The probable DCD children performed more poorly than the children with TD on the PA and the RAN tests. Put in deficit terms, 22% of the children with TD, but 48% of the probable DCD children, had a single or dual PA/RAN deficit. Furthermore, it was manual dexterity that bore the unique relationship with RAN. Automatic visual perceptual-motor coordination may be the common processing component that underlies RAN and probable DCD. The early visual perceptual-motor profile of probable DCD children has not been well recognized before.

Spelling as a way to classify poor Chinese-English literacy skills in Hong Kong Chinese children.

Previous work has predominantly focused on word reading in studying literacy difficulties; very little work has focused on spelling difficulty instead. The present study adopted spelling (dictation) as the criterion to classify poor literacy skills in Hong Kong Chinese-English bilingual children. We examined the cognitive-linguistic skills profiles across four groups of children with different spelling abilities. Based on performances on Chinese and English dictation (criterion = below 25% in a larger sample), four groups were identified, 21 poor spellers of Chinese (PC), 18 poor spellers of English (PE), 27 poor spellers of both languages (PB), and 30 good spellers of both scripts (GB). Measures on language-specific tests of cognitive-linguistic skills (phonological awareness, lexical decision, morphological awareness, rapid naming, and delayed copying) were included to compare the degree of deficit exhibited by each group. With age, grade, and non-verbal intelligence controlled, one-way ANCOVA results revealed that, compared to GB, PC manifested significant deficits in Chinese-delayed copying but scored similarly on all English cognitive-linguistic skills. PE and PB showed significant deficits in Chinese and English phonological awareness compared to PC; they were significantly weaker in English-delayed copying, morphological awareness, and rapid naming (RAN). The PB group was significantly slower in both Chinese and English RAN compared to GB. Findings highlight the critical role of delayed copying in distinguishing poor spellers in both Chinese and English, the importance of phonological awareness for spelling in English but not in Chinese, and the role of automaticity in bilingual spelling difficulties.

The Percentages of Cognitive Skills Deficits among Chinese Children with Developmental Dyslexia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

The current study was conducted to examine the percentages of cognitive skills deficits among Chinese children with developmental dyslexia. Via a systematic review, we collated twenty-two available studies on the proportion of cognitive skills deficits, including phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, morphological awareness, orthographic knowledge, short-term memory and working memory, and visual and motor skills deficits, among Chinese children with developmental dyslexia. The results of a meta-analysis showed that the rapid automatized naming deficits are the core deficit of developmental dyslexia among Chinese children, with a pooled percentage of 44%. This is followed by orthographic knowledge deficits (43%), phonological awareness deficits (41%), morphological awareness deficits (40%), visual and motor skills deficits (33%), and short-term memory and working memory deficits (25%). At the same time, we compared the proportions of different locations, ages, standards and control groups.

Are Different Types of Learning Disorder Associated With Distinct Cognitive Functioning Profiles?

Introduction: DSM-5 presented a revised conceptualization of specific learning disorders (LD). Contrary to former versions, the various types of LD—i.e., mathematics disorder, reading disorder, and writing disorder—are not treated as distinct diagnostic entities but are integrated into one single LD category. In support of this new classification, it has been argued that the various types of LD overlap to a great extent in their cognitive functioning profiles and therefore do not exhibit a distinct set of cognitive causes. In contrast, ICD-11 still adheres to the idea of discrete categories and thus follows the specificity hypothesis of LD. Using latent profile analysis (LPA), we therefore tested the specificity of cognitive strengths and weaknesses in children with different types of LD. Secondly, we aimed at examining the extent to which observed LD characteristics (type and severity of LD as well as IQ-achievement discrepancy) were consistent with the membership of a given latent profile.Method: 302 German third-graders (134 girls; IQ ≥ 85; Mage = 111.05 months; SD = 5.76) with single or comorbid types of LD in the domains of mathematics, reading, and spelling completed a wide range of domain-specific and domain-general cognitive functioning measures.Results: Five qualitative distinct profiles of cognitive strengths and weaknesses were identified. Profile 1 (23% of the sample) showed Comprehensive Cognitive Deficits, performing low in all measures except for naming speed, language, and inhibition. Profile 2 (21%) included children with a Double Deficit in Phonological Awareness and Phonological Short-term Memory. Profile 3 (20%) was characterized by a Double Deficit of Phonological Awareness and Naming Speed. Profile 4 (19%) included children with a Single Deficit in Attention, and profile 5 (17%) consisted of children without any cognitive deficits. Moreover, type and severity of LD as well as IQ-achievement discrepancy discriminated between the profiles, which is in line with the specificity hypothesis of LD.Discussion: Overall, the finding of specific associations between the LD types and the identified cognitive profiles supports the ICD-11 classification of LD. Yet, those inferences may not be valid for an individual child but need to be examined through comprehensive diagnostic.

Towards a Comprehensive Account of Rhythm Processing Issues in Developmental Dyslexia.

Developmental dyslexia is typically defined as a difficulty with an individual’s command of written language, arising from deficits in phonological awareness. However, motor entrainment difficulties in non-linguistic synchronization and time-keeping tasks have also been reported. Such findings gave rise to proposals of an underlying rhythm processing deficit in dyslexia, even though to date, evidence for impaired motor entrainment with the rhythm of natural speech is rather scarce, and the role of speech rhythm in phonological awareness is unclear. The present study aimed to fill these gaps. Dyslexic adults and age-matched control participants with variable levels of previous music training completed a series of experimental tasks assessing phoneme processing, rhythm perception, and motor entrainment abilities. In a rhythm entrainment task, participants tapped along to the perceived beat of natural spoken sentences. In a phoneme processing task, participants monitored for sonorant and obstruent phonemes embedded in nonsense strings. Individual sensorimotor skills were assessed using a number of screening tests. The results lacked evidence for a motor impairment or a general motor entrainment difficulty in dyslexia, at least among adult participants of the study. Instead, the results showed that the participants’ performance in the phonemic task was predictive of their performance in the rhythmic task, but not vice versa, suggesting that atypical rhythm processing in dyslexia may be the consequence, but not the cause, of dyslexic difficulties with phoneme-level encoding. No evidence for a deficit in the entrainment to the syllable rate in dyslexic adults was found. Rather, metrically weak syllables were significantly less often at the center of rhythmic attention in dyslexic adults as compared to neurotypical controls, with an increased tendency in musically trained participants. This finding could not be explained by an auditory deficit in the processing of acoustic-prosodic cues to the rhythm structure, but it is likely to be related to the well-documented auditory short-term memory issue in dyslexia.

Phonological Awareness Deficits in Children With Dyslexia: The Impact of Working Memory as a Function of Modality of Test Administration

This study examined whether the phonological awareness (PA) deficit in Arabic speaking dyslexic children could be impacted by the presence vs. absence of verbal working memory (WM) as function of the sensory modality of administration (auditory vs. visual) of the phonological tests. Three phonological awareness (PA) tasks, i.e., phoneme manipulation, phoneme deletion, and spoonerism task, were administered in two sensory modalities: auditory and visual supported, along with verbal working memory tasks. Results showed that subjects with dyslexia (n = 19) performed significantly lower than typical readers (n = 30) in both PA modalities and working memory tasks. Differences were mainly found between the auditory and visual supported modalities in phoneme deletion and spoonerism for both groups. These results indicate that the PA deficit in children with dyslexia is not specific to the auditory modality and suggest that phonological representations are likely to be impaired in children with dyslexia. Findings shed further light on the issue of whether dyslexia is characterized by poor phonological representations or reduced access to these representations.

Behavioral and Brain Measures of Morphological Processing in Children With and Without Familial Risk for Dyslexia From Pre-school to First Grade

School-age reading skills are associated with and predicted by preschool-age cognitive risk factors for dyslexia, such as deficits in phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, letter knowledge, and verbal short-term memory. In addition, evidence exists that problems in morphological information processing could be considered a risk factor for dyslexia. In the present study, 27 children at pre-school age and the same 27 children at first grade age performed a morphological awareness task while their brain responses were measured with magnetoencephalography. Our aim was to examine how derivational morphology in Finnish language, and concomitant accuracy and reaction times are associated with first grade reading, in addition to the preschool age reading-related cognitive skills. The results replicated earlier findings; we found significant correlations between pre-school phonological skills and first-grade reading, pre-school rapid naming and first-grade reading, and pre-school verbal short-term memory and first-grade reading. The results also revealed a significant correlation between the pre-school children's reaction time for correctly derived words in the morphological task and the first-grade children's performance in rapid automatized naming for letters. No significant correlations were found between brain activation measures of morphological processing and first-grade reading.

Predicting dyslexia in Arabic-speaking children: Developing instruments and estimating their psychometric indices.

Dyslexia is a reading disability that is characterized by when an individual has trouble in rapid and accurate word decoding. This study developed, piloted and assessed the validity and reliability of three instruments: Rapid Automatized Scale (RANS), Arabic Reading Ability Scale (ARAS) and Phonological Awareness Scale (PAS), on a sample of 700 students (aged 8-9 years). Four groups (n=30) were formed based on the participants' results of the three instruments; Double Deficit (DD), Rapid Automatized Naming Deficit (RAND), Phonological Awareness Deficit (PAD) and No Deficit groups. Content validities of the instruments were supported using published reports; though educational experts further revised RANS. It found a significant inverse correlation between the PA test score and RAN (mistakes and time) score (r=-.44; p < .001), and a significant positive correlation between RAN mistakes and RAN time (r=.47; p < .001). Acceptable internal reliability of the RANS was demonstrated by a Cronbach's alpha test coefficient of α=.85 (>.70; acceptable). High inter-rater reliability tests were observed for the three instruments (r ≥ .86, p < .001). The three instruments can predict reading difficulties and dyslexia in Arabic-speaking populations.

Precursors of Reading Performance and Double- and Triple-Deficit Risks in Spanish

Early literacy skills serve as the best precursors of reading success and risk indicators of the double deficit and triple deficit hypotheses according to the spelling consistency of languages. Our study analyzes the predictive value of phonological awareness, naming speed, and orthographic skills for early reading in Spanish. Participants included 362 Spanish children aged 4 to 5 years. We used data analysis to examine the relationships between these precursors and fluency through a structural equation model and investigated the risk indicators of poor reading performance according to the double deficit and triple deficit hypotheses using binary logistic analysis. Our research delimits a model for the Spanish language that emphasizes the predictive value of phonological awareness, letter-naming fluency, and knowledge of graphemes in early reading. Letter-naming fluency is the best precursor to early reading experiences, and poor early reading performance in children is explained by deficits in phonological awareness, naming speed, and visual orientation. Our findings confirm the risk indicators of the triple deficit hypothesis in the early learning of reading in Spanish.

Group Stability and Reading Profiles of Students With Dyslexia: A Double-Deficit Perspective

This study examined the Double-Deficit Hypothesis (DDH) by classifying students with dyslexia into four distinct groups, comparing group differences on text-level reading tasks, and examining group stability across one school year (fall to spring). Elementary students ( N = 109) were administered measures of reading fluency, reading comprehension, and phonological processing across the school year. DDH group membership was determined by the presence of phonological awareness deficits (PD), naming speed deficits (NSD), double-deficits (DD) in both skills, or no deficits for typically developing (TD) readers. The McNemar test was used to determine the stability of DDH group membership. Analysis of covariance was used to compare DDH groups on text-level reading tasks at each time point after controlling for gender. Overall, reading profiles across the fall DDH groups were congruent with DDH theory, but instability was found in the reading patterns and group membership across time. Nearly half (47.71%) of participants changed DDH groups across the school year, and reading skill differences between the single-deficit groups dissipated in the spring. Results provide partial support for the DDH subgroups. More research is needed to understand the utility of the DDH subtypes for future assessment and intervention practices.

Analysing Reading Skill in National Plus School Curriculum: Phonological Awareness of Young Learners

This research aims to analyse reading skill of English for young learners in SES national plus school which teaches their classes using full Indonesian or full English. The researcher used phonological awareness test to determine the students’ ability to switch between the two languages. 63 young learners from the selected school were tested to find out the nature of their awareness when it comes to the reading tasks. This study used central tendency measures of descriptive statistics to summarise and describe the data. The results indicate that the respondents displayed phonological awareness in some tasks and experienced difficulties in other tasks. Various deficits in phonological awareness of the bilingually educated young learners were observed and categorised as Initial Sound Identification, Final Sound Detection, Final Sound Detection and Letter Identification

Developmental Trajectories of Phonological Information Processing in Upper Elementary Students With Reading or Spelling Disabilities

AbstractDeficits in phonological information processing in upper elementary students with specific learning disabilities in reading or spelling may increase, decrease, or remain stable over time. The authors examined the development of phonological processing longitudinally in 209 students (109 with learning disabilities and 100 typically achieving; n = 127 boys) in Germany, from grade 3 to grade 5 (ages 8–11; mean age at recruitment = 8 years 6.78 months, SD = 5.39 months). Latent change score models revealed that the development of rapid automatized naming was best described as a decreasing deficit, whereas a persistent deficit in phonological awareness was observed. Differences between students with and without learning disabilities regarding the phonological loop increased over time. Further, there were no developmental differences as a function of reading versus spelling deficits. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) and Its Relationship to Phonological Awareness and Reading: A Pilot Study in a Greek Sample of Students with Dyslexia

Introduction: Reading impairment in children with dyslexia stems from either a phonological awareness deficit or a deficit in rapid automatized naming. Both deficits constitute the double deficit hypothesis of dyslexia. The aim of the present study was to assess phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming in a group of Greek-speaking children with dyslexia and to correlate their performance in phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming with reading fluency (accuracy and comprehension) scores. Method: Participants were 23 children with a formal diagnosis of dyslexia and 27 typically-developing children with no other learning difficulties or dyslexia. All children were monolingual speakers of Greek and they were administered a naming speed test, a fluency test, a phonological awareness test and reading accuracy and comprehension tasks. Results: Students with dyslexia scored worse in most phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and reading fluency measures in comparison to their non-dyslexic peers. In addition, students with dyslexia needed more time to complete the rapid automatized naming tests. Positive correlations were found between phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and reading fluency tests for both groups of students. Specifically, rapid automatized naming and phonological awareness explained 9.3% and 21.8%, respectively, of the variance in the reading fluency of students with dyslexia, while the respective contributions of rapid automatized naming and phonological awareness to the reading fluency for non-dyslexic students were 2% and 9.3%, respectively. Discussion and Conclusion: Phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming can be reliable predictors of reading fluency even in orthographically consistent languages (i.e., Greek), offering support to the double deficit hypothesis. In addition, combining phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming tests seems to be a quick and reliable way to early identify children at risk of reading difficulties in the first grades of primary school.