Phonological processing, speech perception, and reading disability: An integrative review

This study investigated the relationship between speech perception, phonological processing and reading skills among school-aged children classified as 'skilled' and 'less skilled' readers based on their ability to read words, decode non-words, and comprehend short passages. Three speech perception tasks involving categorization of speech continua differing in voicing, place and manner of articulation were administered and compared to phonological processing skills in phonological awareness, speeded naming and verbal short-term memory. The results obtained suggested that (a) speech categorization among skilled readers differed from that of less skilled readers, (b) speech perception skills were associated with both reading and phonological processing skills among both skilled and less skilled readers, however, (c) a strong association between speeded naming and both word and passage reading skills found among skilled readers was absent among less skilled readers. These results suggested that phonological representations and/or activation may not be as well developed in less skilled readers.

Background and ObjectivesA deficit in phonological processing abilities has been hypothesized as a cause of reading deficits among poor readers, but the precise etiology of this deficit is still unknown. Many studies have investigated the relation of auditory processing and speech perception with phonological processing, while the relation between these are not well understood. Thus, the present study was carried out to investigate the relation between these abilities among poor readers.Subjects and MethodsA total of 20 children between 7-12 years of age participated in the study. Among these 10 were typically developing children and 10 were poor readers. Auditory processing, speech perception in noise and phonological processing skills were assessed in both the groups.ResultsAuditory processing was not significantly different between children in both the groups. In contrast, phonological awareness, verbal short-term memory and rapid automatized naming, which reflect phonological processing, and speech perception in noise were found to be significantly affected in poor readers. In addition, the results showed a significant correlation between phonological processing and speech perception in noise.ConclusionsThe present study found a significant relationship between speech perception in noise and phonological processing, while there was no relationship between auditory processing and phonological processing. This finding suggests that poor speech perception among poor readers may be one of the contributing factors for phonological processing deficits, which in turn leads to reading difficulties.

This study investigated the phonological processing skills of 29 children with prelingual, profound hearing loss with 4 years of cochlear implant experience. Results were group matched with regard to word-reading ability and mother’s educational level with the performance of 29 hearing children. Results revealed that it is possible to obtain a valid measure of phonological processing (PP) skills in children using CIs. They could complete rhyming tasks and were able to complete sound-based tasks using standard test materials provided by a commercial test distributor. The CI children completed tasks measuring PP, but there were performance differences between the CI users and the hearing children. The process of learning phonological awareness (PA) for the children with CIs was characterized by a longer, more protracted learning phase than their counterparts with hearing. Tests of phonological memory skills indicated that when the tasks were controlled for presentation method and response modality, there were no differences between the performance of children with CIs and their counterparts with hearing. Tests of rapid naming revealed that there were no differences between rapid letter and number naming between the two groups. Results yielded a possible PP test battery for children with CI experience.

During the last decade, the importance of the relationship between phonological processing skills to reading performance has been highlighted. The aim of this study was to examine differences between above average and below average readers (determined by a reading comprehension test) on phonological processing skills at grade one and at grade three. There were 35 grade one, and 34 grade three students from two primary schools. Data from phonemic awareness and phonological awareness tests were subjected to t‐tests. The below average readers in both grade one and three had fewer phonological processing skills than the above average readers. The importance of students’ cognitive functioning to reading comprehension appeared more important at the grade one level than at the grade three level. The study indicated that below average readers, particularly at grade one, would benefit from explicit teaching in both phonemic and phonological awareness skills.

The neural basis of dyslexia in different languages remains unresolved, and it is unclear whether the phonological deficit as the core deficit of dyslexia is language-specific or universal. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study using whole-brain data-driven network analyses investigated the neural mechanisms for phonological and orthographic processing in Chinese children with good and poor reading ability. Sixteen good readers and 16 poor readers were requested to make homophone judgments (phonological processing) and component judgments (visual-orthographic processing) of presented Chinese characters. Poor readers displayed worse performance than the good readers in phonological processing, but not in orthographic processing. Whole-brain activation analyses showed compensatory activations in the poor readers during phonological processing and automatic phonological production activation in the good readers during orthographic processing. Significant group differences in the topological properties of their brain networks were found only in orthographic processing. Analyses of nodal degree centrality and betweenness centrality revealed significant group differences in both phonological and orthographic processing. The present study supports the phonological core deficit hypothesis of reading difficulty in Chinese. It also suggests that Chinese good and poor readers might recruit different strategies and neural mechanisms for orthographic processing.

Phonemic and prosodic awareness are both phonological processes that operate at different levels: the former at the level of the individual sound segment and the latter at the suprasegmental level across syllables. Both have been shown to be related to word reading in young readers. In this study we examine how these processes are differentially related to reading monosyllabic and multisyllabic words. Participants were 110 children in grades four and five who were asked to read monosyllabic and three- and four-syllable words matched for frequency. Phonemic awareness was assessed via a phoneme elision task; prosodic awareness was assessed by a task asking participants to identify the syllable bearing primary stress in a spoken word. Results showed that phonemic and prosodic awareness were independent predictors of short word reading, and both phonological factors made independent contributions to multisyllabic word reading, showing that phonemic and prosodic awareness are complementary but not redundant processes. Only prosodic awareness survived control for simple decoding ability in the reading of long words, suggesting that suprasegmental phonology gives added value to our understanding of reading multisyllabic words.

Part I Differential diagnosis for reading disabilities: problems in the differential diagnosis of reading disabilities from research to clinical assessment of reading and writing disorders - the unit of analysis problem constructing meaning from diagnostic assessment texts - validity as usefulness Alice in IQ land or why IQ is still irrelevant to learning disabilities towards developing a framework for diagnosing reading disorders. Part II Access to language-related component processes: components of variance models of language-related factors in reading disability - a conceptual overview phonemic awareness, language and literacy the relevance of phonological awareness in learning to read - Scandinavian longitudinal and quasi-experimental studies does a past history of speech disorder predict literacy difficulties? phonological processing in learning disabled adolescents phonological deficits and the development of word recognition skills in developmental dyslexia. Part III Reading/spelling strategies: dyslexic reading strategies and lexical access - a comparison and validation of reading strategy distributions in dyslexic adolescents and younger, normal readers the spelling-reading connection and dyslexia - can spelling be used to teach the alphabetic strategy? impact of instruction on word identification skills in children with phonological processing problems predicting reading acquisition in high and low IQ groups phonetic short-term memory representation in children's reading of Greek developmental dyslexia as a cognitive style reading comprehension and related skills in nine-year-old normal and poor readers.

Third- and fourth-grade Norwegian children completed a battery of tasks that measured indicators of orthographic and phonological processing skill, leisure time reading, home literacy environment, and nonverbal intelligence. Using latent variable structural equation modeling, it was found that home literacy environment influenced leisure time reading, and that leisure time reading contributed to orthographic processing skill beyond the prediction provided by phonological processing skill. Home literacy environment influenced orthographic processing skill indirectly by its influence on leisure time reading. In addition, some children with poor phonological skill and good orthographic skill were found to score high on a leisure time reading measure. Even though Norwegian has much more regular orthography than English, these results are consistent with previous findings in the United States linking variance in orthographic processing skill to differences in leisure time reading. Thus, this study showed the robustness of orthographic skill independent of phonological processing even within the context of an orthographically regular language.

Associations Between Key Language-Related Measures in Typically Developing School-Age Children

This study examines the effects of a phonics‐emphasis Direct Instruction beginning reading program on the phonological processes of students with teacher‐identified serious reading problems attending a northern Melbourne reading intervention centre. The students (16 males and 10 females, mean age 8.8 years) were assigned to the treatment condition or to a wait‐list comparison group. The 13 students in the intervention group received 100 lessons (in 2 groups) of the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons program from a teacher at the reading intervention centre. When compared with a similar cohort of wait‐list students, the students made statistically significant and educationally large gains in the phonologically‐related processes of word attack, phonemic awareness, phonological recoding in lexical access, phonological recoding in working memory and spelling. The study contributes to the long‐standing debate on how best to ensure that children learn to read; to the understanding of the relationship between phonological processes and reading; to an understanding of the effects of the current instructional approach to reading on at‐risk children, and how additional or alternative approaches more attuned to the findings of reading research may improve the effectiveness of the educational system.

Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children may develop compensatory strategies in language learning due to auditory limitations, such as using speechreading to process spoken information. However, it remains unclear whether similar visual compensatory mechanisms are employed by DHH children when acquiring written languages, especially in visually complex logographic systems such as Chinese. This study examined the characteristics of speechreading as well as phonological and visual-orthographic processing skills in Chinese reading among DHH children, utilizing both age- and reading level-matched designs. A total of 24 DHH children who used sign language participated in the present study, alongside 24 age-matched and 24 reading level-matched hearing peers. All participants completed a battery of assessments on reading and related cognitive skills, including Chinese character reading, sentence comprehension, text comprehension, phonological awareness, rapid naming, speechreading comprehension, and orthographic and visual processing. Whereas DHH children performed significantly worse than age- and reading level-matched hearing children on phonological awareness and rapid naming, they performed significantly better than the two hearing groups on speechreading comprehension and visual search tasks. In addition, DHH children also performed comparably to the two hearing groups on orthographic skills. Correlation analyses revealed that, for DHH children, higher phonological awareness was significantly correlated with better Chinese character reading and that faster rapid naming and better speechreading at the single-word level were significantly correlated with increased text comprehension. Additionally, the hit rate of real characters and visual processing showed a trend toward correlation with Chinese character reading. These findings suggest that, despite challenges in auditory and phonological processing, DHH children may resort to visual compensatory strategies to facilitate their reading development. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.31337374.

In this study, the authors aimed to examine the long-term effects of prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE) on the language development of 12-year-old children using a prospective design, controlling for confounding prenatal drug exposure and environmental factors. Children who were exposed to cocaine in utero (PCE; n = 183) and children who were not exposed to cocaine (i.e., no cocaine exposure [NCE]; n = 181) were followed prospectively from birth to 12 years of age and were compared on language subtests of the Test of Language Development-Intermediate, Third Edition ( Hammill & Newcomer, 1997b), and phonological processing as measured by the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing ( Wagner & Torgesen, 1999). The authors evaluated the relationship of PCE to language development through a multivariate analysis of covariance and regression analyses while controlling for confounders. Results show that PCE has small effects on specific aspects of language, including syntax and phonological processing. The caregiver variables of lower maternal vocabulary, more psychological symptoms, and a poorer home environment also had consistent effects on language and phonological processing scores. These findings suggest that PCE continues to have small, subtle effects on specific aspects of language at age 12 years. Phonological processing skills were significantly related to the reading outcomes of letter-word identification, reading fluency, and reading comprehension, indicating that PCE also has small but lasting effects on the language skills that are related to later literacy skills.

In order to provide effective intervention for children with specific language impairment (SLI), it is crucial that there is an understanding of the underlying deficit in SLI. This study utilized a battery of phonological processing tasks to compare the phonological processing skills of children with SLI to typically-developing peers matched for age or language. The children with SLI had significantly poorer performance than age-matched peers on measures of phonological representations, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, phonological short-term memory, and one measure of working memory. Of particular significance, the SLI group also demonstrated significantly weaker performance than language-matched peers on one measure of phonological representations, and one measure of working memory. The findings provide some support for a phonological processing account of SLI and highlight the utility of using tasks that draw on a comprehensive model of speech processing to profile and consider children's phonological processing skills in detail.

Objectives: This study aimed to explore how linguistic reading, and phonological processing skills contribute to writing composition in school-aged children. Understanding the key predictors of writing performance can provide valuable insights into the complex linguistic and cognitive processes involved in writing development. Methods: A total of 115 children from 2nd to 6th grade participated, all scoring at or above 80 on a nonverbal intelligence test. Writing composition was assessed using the K-CELF-5 writing test. Linguistic measures were evaluated through receptive vocabulary REVT, sentence repetition, and sentence assembly from the K-CELF-5. Reading abilities included word decoding, passage reading fluency and reading comprehension of the KOLRA. Phonological processing skills were assessed using the tasks that evaluated phonological awareness, rapid naming, and nonword repetition from the KOLRA. Pearson correlation and multiple stepwise regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship and predictive power of these variables on writing composition. Results: Writing composition was significantly correlated with all linguistic, reading and phonological processing variables, except nonword repetition. Stronger correlations were found with linguistic variables, while phonological awareness and word decoding showed relatively weaker correlations. The three significant predictors of writing composition were syntactic awareness, which was the strongest predictor followed by rapid naming and receptive vocabulary. Conclusion: The finding suggest that syntactic awareness, receptive vocabulary, and rapid naming all play crucial roles in writing composition for school-aged children. This highlights the importance of both linguistic knowledge and phonological efficiency, emphasizing the complexity of writing, which requires a combination of linguistic and phonological processing skills.

Auditory processing and speech perception in children with specific language impairment: Relations with oral language and literacy skills