Children Who Read Words Accurately Despite Language Impairment: Who Are They and How Do They Do It? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 2006
Researchers and practitioners in the fields of reading and language are well informed about the importance of phonological awareness in beginning reading. The purpose of this special issue of Learning Disabilities Research & Practice is to present recent research that extends the search for language and reading connections beyond the realm of phonological awareness. Many children with language impairment (LI) identified before formal schooling experience persistent difficulty in learning to read. Two interrelated issues are prerequisite for understanding the developmental course of events that might link language and reading (dis)ability in these children. One is an appreciation of exactly what is meant by LI, while the second concerns how LI should be explained. In this introductory article, we explore the complexities of these two issues, in particular the controversy between the domain-specific perspective and the domain-general perspective on the nature of specific LI (SLI). Consistent with these perspectives, future studies on possible language-reading links will need to measure language and related processes in greater breadth and depth, over time, and within a variety of experiential contexts. The five articles in this issue represent a critical first step in this direction.
Toward an Understanding of Developmental Language and Reading Disorders
Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 1986
The primary purpose of this study was to compare the ability of language-impaired and reading-impaired children to process (i.e.', encode and retrieve) phonological information. Four measures of phonological awareness and several measures of word and sentence repetition abilities were used to evaluate phono!ogica! processing skills. Two additional measures assessed children's awareness of lexical and morphological information. Subjects were 12 language-impaired (LI), 12 reading-impaired (RI), and 12 normal children between the ages of 6 and 8 years. The findings supported previous claims that children with reading impairments have difficulty processing phonological information. To our surprise, however, the LI children performed significantly worse than the RI children on only three measures, all involving word and sentence repetition. These findings raise questions about the distinctiveness of school-age children with a history of language impairment and poor readers with no history of language impairment,
Scientific Studies of Reading, 2014
In this study word reading (WR) fluency was used to dichotomously classify 1,598 Dutch children at different cutoffs, indicating (very) poor or (very) good reading performance. Analysis of variance and receiver operating characteristics were used to investigate the effects of rapid automatized naming (RAN) and phonemic awareness (PA) in predicting group membership. The highest predictive values were found for the combination of RAN and PA, particularly for the poorest readers. Furthermore, results indicate that with the severity of impairment, WR is more dominated by deficient PA, which is interpreted as an enduring problem with sublexical processing. Another main result is that with the increase of reading skill, the contribution of PA diminishes, whereas the contribution of RAN remains fairly constant for the whole reading fluency continuum. These results warrant the conclusion that whereas PA hallmarks reading disability, RAN appears to be the default predictor for above-average or excellent reading proficiency.
A Longitudinal Investigation of Reading Outcomes in Children With Language Impairments
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2002
This investigation examined the reading outcomes of children with language impairments (LI). A large subsample of children who participated in an epidemiologic study of language impairments in kindergarten (J. B. Tomblin, N. Records, P. Buckwalter, X. Zhang, E. Smith, & M. O'Brien, 1997) was followed into second and fourth grades. Participants' language, reading, and nonverbal cognitive abilities were assessed. Results indicated that children with LI in kindergarten were at a high risk for reading disabilities in second and fourth grades. This risk was higher for children with a nonspecific language impairment (nonverbal and language deficits) than for those with a specific language impairment (deficits in language alone). Children with LI in kindergarten who had improved in spoken language abilities by second and fourth grades had better reading outcomes than those with persistent language impairments. Also, children's literacy knowledge/ experience in kindergarten and their initial reading achievement in second grade were good predictors of subsequent reading outcomes.
Children's reading impairments: From theory to practice
Japanese Psychological Research, 2012
This paper outlines the nature and characteristics of children's reading disorders and considers current ideas about the definitions of dyslexia and reading comprehension impairment. We argue that reading skills show continuous variations within the population, making the diagnostic “cut‐offs” used in the identification of reading disorders essentially arbitrary. We argue that there is a considerable overlap between children's reading and language disorders and discuss methods for the early identification of children's reading disorders. We argue that interventions for reading disorders need to be evidence based, and review the evidence for the effectiveness of current approaches to intervention. We conclude by considering the extent to which learning to read in different languages may depend on some universal cognitive principles, as well as processes that may differ between alphabetic and nonalphabetic writing systems.
Learning Disabilities Research and Practice
Researchers and practitioners in the fields of reading and language are well informed about the importance of phonological awareness in beginning reading. The purpose of this special issue of Learning Disabilities Research & Practice is to present recent research that extends the search for language and reading connections beyond the realm of phonological awareness. Many children with language impairment (LI) identified before formal schooling experience persistent difficulty in learning to read. Two interrelated issues are prerequisite for understanding the developmental course of events that might link language and reading (dis)ability in these children. One is an appreciation of exactly what is meant by LI, while the second concerns how LI should be explained. In this introductory article, we explore the complexities of these two issues, in particular the controversy between the domain-specific perspective and the domain-general perspective on the nature of specific LI (SLI). Consistent with these perspectives, future studies on possible language-reading links will need to measure language and related processes in greater breadth and depth, over time, and within a variety of experiential contexts. The five articles in this issue represent a critical first step in this direction.
Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 2008
The importance of early identification of children at risk for reading failure is clearly established in the literature. The purpose of this longitudinal retrospective study was to further define the relationship between the development of prereading skills and later reading outcome in two groups of children; a group of reading-disabled children and a group of their normally reading peers. Children's alphabetic knowledge, phonological awareness, and rapid naming skills were explored at the beginning of kindergarten and again prior to first grade as a function of later reading outcomes. Results indicate that differences found between the groups in all measures at prekindergarten age diminish by prefirst grade with the exception of phonological awareness abilities. Findings have direct implications for screening children at risk for reading difficulties and the time-sensitive nature of these tasks during the preliteracy period.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 1990
Language and literacy skills were assessed in 83 8 1/2-year olds whose language development had been impaired at 4 years of age. Provided that language problems had resolved by age 5 1/2 years, literacy development was normal, but many of the children who still had verbal deficits at 5 1/2 years of age did have reading difficulties and persisting oral language impairments later on. In these children, reading comprehension tended to be poor relative to reading accuracy. Syntactic competence in the preschool period accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance in literacy attainments, after allowing for the effects of non-verbal ability. There were only weak links between expressive phonological disorders and later ability to read either meaningful text or non-words.
Word and pseudoword reading in children with specific speech and language impairment
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2014
Children with specific language impairment frequently encounter difficulties in learning to read and in particular, in word recognition. The present study set out to determine the precise impact of language impairment on word reading skills. We investigated singleword reading in 27 French children with specific speech and language impairment (2SLI). Precise quantification of reading levels in the 2SLI group showed an average delay of 3.5 years. Approximately 90% of these children were affected by a reading disorder, whereas for the remaining 10%, reading performance was within normal limits. Word reading procedures are analyzed using the so-called 'dual route model', which proposes that reading is achieved through two processes, the phonological and the orthographic procedures. Group comparison analyses of 27 reading level-matched control children, revealed an increased lexicality effect in the 2SLI group, indicating a specific deficit in the phonological procedure. Moreover, multiple case analyses revealed interindividual differences among the children with 2SLI, with four reading subtypes. Approximately 60% of these children reached the standard levels expected of younger children with identical reading levels (delayed reading profile) in both procedures. Twenty percent displayed qualitatively different reading mechanisms, with a greater deficit in the phonological procedure (phonological profile). These children showed a severe impairment in language production at the phonological level. Ten percent exhibited a greater orthographic deficit (surface profile) and 10% had normal reading skills (normal profile). Further research is required to improve our understanding of the relationships between 2SLI or specific language impairment and reading acquisition. The present results suggest that in clinical practice, both reading procedures should be exercised, with emphasis on the phonological procedure for children with more severe deficits in phonological production.
In this study we compared dyslexic children and specific language impaired (SLI) children on phonological skills and underlying processes, i.e. working memory and auditory perception. Problems with phonological skills and underlying processes occur in both dyslexic and SLI children. However, dyslexic children experience particularly problems in word recognition, while a considerable number of SLI children develop relatively good reading skills. What is the importance of phonological skills and underlying processes to reading achievement? Results show differences in degree of problems between dyslexic and SLI children. Patterns of results of performance between groups differ. This could imply that both groups differ in (other) underlying skills which explain poor performance on tasks of this study but are not necessarily related to reading achievement.