Very early phonological and language skills: estimating individual risk of reading disability

Abstract

Background: Analyses from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia project show that the key childhood predictors (phonological awareness, short-term memory, rapid naming, expressive vocabulary, pseudoword repetition, and letter naming) of dyslexia differentiate the group with reading disability (n ¼ 46) and the group without reading problems (n ¼ 152) at the end of the 2nd grade. These measures were employed at the ages of 3.5, 4.5 and 5.5 years and information regarding the familial risk of dyslexia was used to find the most sensitive indices of an individual child's risk for reading disability. Methods: Age-specific and across-age logistic regression models were constructed to produce the risk indices. The predictive ability of the risk indices was explored using the ROC (receiver operating curve) plot. Information from the logistic models was further utilised in illustrating the risk with probability curve presentations. Results: The logistic regression models with familial risk, letter knowledge, phonological awareness and RAN provided a prediction probability above .80 (area under ROC). Conclusions: The models including familial risk status and the three above-mentioned measures offer a rough screening procedure for estimating an individual child's risk for reading disability at the age of 3.5 years. Probability curves are presented as a method of illustrating the risk.

When does speech sound disorder matter for literacy? The role of disordered speech errors, co‐occurring language impairment and family risk of dyslexia

“…(2014) and Puolakanaho et al. (2007). It should be noted, however, that it does not predict either phoneme awareness or spelling at age 5½, plausibly because at this stage most variance in these skills is associated with speech status 2 years earlier when many children at family risk of dyslexia show speech difficulties.…”

The precursors of double dissociation between reading and spelling in a transparent orthography

“…Spelling to dictation was assessed with a pseudoword spelling task that included eight items. The test was adopted from the task developed in Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia and has been used in several previous studies (e.g., Puolakanaho et al, 2007;Torppa, Parrila, Niemi, Lerkkanen, Poikkeus, & Nurmi, 2013). The children were asked to write on a piece of paper the pseudowords that the tester dictated one by one.…”

Late-Emerging and Resolving Dyslexia: A Follow-Up Study from Age 3 to 14

“…In the early phases of reading development letter knowledge and phonological skills seem to be particularly important, as basic decoding requires solid knowledge of letters, sounds, and their connections (e.g. Georgiou, Parrila, & Papadopoulos, 2008;Puolakanaho et al, 2007). Later on, decoding becomes automatized in typically developing children.…”

“…In the present study we include, in addition to phonological skills, several other skills that have been shown to be closely linked to reading development: letter knowledge, rapid naming, verbal short-term memory, and vocabulary (e.g., Puolakanaho, et al, 2007;Snowling, Gallagher, & Frith, 2003;van Bergen, de Jong, Maassen, & van der Leij, 2014). Unlike previous studies, we report performance on these skills both prior to and following school entry.…”