This article focuses on assessment and diagnosis of phonological coding problems in young children. Phonological coding is defined as the representation of information about the sound structure of verbal stimuli in memory. Phonological coding deficits are tightly linked to difficulties in acquiring early word-reading skills. The task most widely used to assess phonological coding difficulties in disabled readers has been memory span for items like digits, words, or letters. However, naming-rate or simple articulation-rate tasks may provide more sensitive measures of coding difficulties. We propose that the best measure of phonological coding difficulties may be a combination of tasks currently being developed.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not the method of presentation chosen by the examiner (live voice vs. taped) affects a child's score on both the Blending and Memory for Sentences subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery. Subjects were 60 young children (mean age=8-3) and 60 older children (mean age= 13-4) from a rural county school population. There were 30 black and 30 white children within each age group, and 15 children from each age and racial group were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions (live voice vs. taped presentation of subtests). For both subtests, there were significant main effects for presentation condition, racial group, and age level. There were no significant interactions. The overall pattern of results indicated that live voice presentation benefitted black and white children of both age levels in their scores on both subtests.
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