Speech production deficits in early readers: predictors of risk

Abstract

Speech problems and reading disorders are linked, suggesting that speech problems may potentially be an early marker of later difficulty in associating graphemes with phonemes. Current norms suggest that complete mastery of the production of the consonant phonemes in English occurs in most children at around 6–7 years. Many children enter formal schooling (kindergarten) around 5 years of age with near-adult levels of speech production. Given that previous research has shown that speech production abilities and phonological awareness skills are linked in preschool children, we set out to examine whether this pattern also holds for children just beginning to learn to read, as suggested by the critical age hypothesis. In the present study, using a diverse sample, we explored whether expressive phonological skills in 92 5-year-old children at the beginning and end of kindergarten were associated with early reading skills. Speech errors were coded according to whether they were developmentally appropriate, position within the syllable, manner of production of the target sounds, and whether the error involved a substitution, omission, or addition of a speech sound. At the beginning of the school year, children with significant early reading deficits on a predictively normed test (DIBELS) made more speech errors than children who were at grade level. Most of these errors were typical of kindergarten children (e.g., substitutions involving fricatives), but reading-delayed children made more of these errors than children who entered kindergarten with grade level skills. The reading-delayed children also made more atypical errors, consistent with our previous findings about preschoolers. Children who made no speech errors at the beginning of kindergarten had superior early reading abilities, and improvements in speech errors over the course of the year were significantly correlated with year-end reading skills. The role of expressive vocabulary and working memory were also explored, and appear to account for some of these findings.

Identifying and managing common childhood language and speech impairments

“…22 In contrast, the onset of stuttering is associated with higher, rather than lower, maternal education. 6 Even in population studies with both sufficient sample size and breadth to build comprehensive risk models, much of the preschool variance in all three disorders remains unexplained.…”

Speech Abilities in Preschool Children With Speech Sound Disorder With and Without Co-Occurring Language Impairment

“…In the present study, children with co-occurring SSD and LI (i.e., those at particular risk of developing reading problems; Peterson et al, 2009), showed frequent omission error pattern use. Foy and Mann (2012) found a significant correlation between omission error pattern use and nonword reading abilities in kindergarten-aged children without SSDs, although the correlation was low (r = -.22). Research is required to determine whether increased omission and atypical error pattern use in younger children with SSD (i.e., younger than 3 years old) is predictive of later reading problems.…”

“…These patterns may aid in the early identification of children who are at risk of developing co-occurring SSD and LI and also, therefore, later reading problems. For example, Foy and Mann (2012) found that omission error pattern use at the beginning of kindergarten was significantly correlated with nonword reading at the end of the year in children with typical development. Although speech-language impairments often remain undiagnosed in preschool children (Tomblin et al, 1997), surface speech behavior associated with a linguistic deficit may be relatively easy to identify by parents, teachers, and SLPs at a young age.…”

Increased Response to Altered Auditory Feedback in Dyslexia: A Weaker Sensorimotor Magnet Implied in the Phonological Deficit

“…Notably, these phonological deficits are reported to largely persist into adulthood (Shaywitz et al, 1999;Wilson & Lesaux, 2001). To date, research on phonological abilities in DD has focused predominantly on either speech perception (e.g., Ziegler, PechGeorgel, George, & Lorenzi, 2009) or production (e.g., Foy & Mann, 2012). Current models of speech production, however, suggest that the interaction between speech perception and production might be crucial in understanding the development of phonological representations (Guenther, Ghosh, & Tourville, 2006;Hickok, Houde, & Rong, 2011).…”