Early phonological awareness and reading skills in children with Down syndrome

Increasingly, children with Down syndrome receive literacy instruction with the expectation of acquiring functional reading skills. Unfortunately, little is known about the processes underlying literacy skills in this special population. Phonological awareness contributes to literacy development in typically developing children, however, there is inconclusive evidence about these skills in younger children with Down syndrome. 9 children with Down syndrome (5.6-8.10 years) participated in this investigation. Due to the paucity of standardised phonological awareness measures for children with special needs, in particular children with Down syndrome, a variety of tasks were adapted from the literature. The assessment battery examined the skills of phonological awareness, literacy, speech production, expressive language, hearing acuity, speech perception, and auditory-visual memory. The results suggest that children with Down syndrome are at risks for reading acquisition difficulties due to reduced phonological awareness skills. These deficits are in addition to delays caused by reduced cognitive skills. Only one of the participants was able to demonstrate rhyme awareness, which may have been due to task effects. Written word recognition ability was correlated with tests of phonemic awareness, and error analysis of the spelling and non-word reading tasks suggested grapheme-phoneme connections deficits. Further research is needed to determine the best methods of assessment and intervention for phonological awareness in children with Down syndrome.     

Effects of naturalistic instruction on phonological awareness skills of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities

This study evaluated the effects of an intervention for teaching phonological awareness skills to kindergarten-age children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The intervention employed a combined multiple treatment and multiple baseline design, embedded in playtime and implemented under naturally occurring conditions. Six children in a special education kindergarten class were taught syllable segmentation, first sound identification, and phoneme segmenting. Results indicated that all children made gains on each skill. Results are discussed in light of current research on phonological awareness intervention for young children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.     

Training phonological awareness skills in children with Down syndrome

Increasingly, children with Down syndrome receive literacy instruction based on a phonological awareness philosophy with the expectation of acquiring functional reading skills. Previous research demonstrates that a phonological awareness based reading programme delivers excellent results in terms of literacy acquisition and improvements in speech production for children with speech and language delays. Unfortunately, little research exists to support the effectiveness of this approach for children with Down syndrome. The current research study examined using a phonological awareness based intervention programme with three children with Down syndrome (aged 7;2, 8;4, and 8;10). A multiple baseline across behaviours design was selected. The intervention programme focused on the key skills of alliteration detection, phoneme isolation, spelling of orthographically regular words and rhyme detection. Two tasks (comprehension of passive structures and spatial structures) were selected as control behaviours. Phoneme segmentation and speech intelligibility were selected to investigate generalisation of intervention targets to other related skill areas. The results indicated that the participants improved the phonological awareness skills targeted in the intervention programme. Unfortunately, no generalisation to other areas of phonological awareness was noted. In summary, the results indicate that children with Down syndrome can benefit from a phonological awareness based approach to literacy.     

The role of phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge in the reading development of children with intellectual disabilities

Our study investigated if phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge were predictors of reading progress in children with intellectual disabilities (ID) with unspecified etiology. An academic achievement test was administered to 129 children with mild or moderate ID when they were 6–8 years old, as well as one and two school years later. Findings indicated that phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge at 6–8 years of age predicted progress in word and non-word reading after one school year and two school years after controlling for IQ, age, expressive vocabulary, spoken language, and type of placement. Phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge at 6–8 years of age also predicted progress in reading comprehension after one school year and two school years. These findings suggest that training phonological awareness skills combined with explicit phonics instruction is important to foster reading progress in children with mild and moderate ID with unspecified etiology.     

Importance of speech production for phonological awareness and word decoding: The case of children with cerebral palsy

The goal of this longitudinal study was to investigate the precursors of early reading development in 52 children with cerebral palsy at kindergarten level in comparison to 65 children without disabilities. Word Decoding was measured to investigate early reading skills, while Phonological Awareness, Phonological Short-term Memory (STM), Speech Perception, Speech Production and Nonverbal Reasoning were considered reading precursors. Children with cerebral palsy lag behind on all reading precursors at the beginning of the second year of kindergarten. For the children without disabilities, early reading skills in Grade 1 were best predicted by Phonological Awareness and Phonological STM while Speech Production was the most important predictor of early reading success for the children with cerebral palsy, followed by Phonological Awareness and Speech Perception. Furthermore, for children with cerebral palsy, Speech Production appears to dominate reading development, as Speech Production measured at the beginning of the second year of kindergarten was strongly predictive of all other reading precursors measured at the end of the second year of kindergarten. The results of this study reveal that children with cerebral palsy with additional speech impairments are at risk for limited literacy development. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Effects of phonological awareness and naming speed on mathematics skills in children with mild intellectual disabilities

Abstract

Objective: Both phonological awareness (PA) and naming speed have been identified as two skills related to the development of mathematics skills for children with and without learning disabilities. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationships between PA and colour naming speed for 265 elementary school students with mild intellectual disabilities (MID).

Methods: Participants were assessed using the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes and the KeyMath Revised Diagnostic Inventory of Essential Mathematics.

Results: Hierarchical regression analyses accounting for the effects of age indicated that children with MID rely on both PA and naming speed when solving mathematics problems, although PA was the more robust indicator of the two.

Conclusion: As a whole, these results suggest that children with intellectual disabilities evidence the same types of reading and math relationships as shown for other populations of children.     

Reading ability and phonological awareness in Japanese children with dyslexia

In alphabetic languages, the deficit of the phonological awareness is considered as the core deficit in developmental dyslexia. However, the role of phonological awareness in the acquisition of reading Japanese kana, the transparent, mora-based phonogram, has not been understood completely. We examine the abilities of Japanese dyslexic children on different types of Japanese phonological tasks, and discussed which tasks significantly account for each aspect of reading ability. METHODS: Fifteen dyslexic children (9.53+/-1.52 years old), and 15 children with normal reading ability (9.17+/-0.90 years old) participated in this study. They performed three types of phonological awareness tasks. The mora counting task and the mora reversal task of words require phonological awareness at the mora level. The letter rhyming task, which resembles the task in English language, requires phonological awareness at the phoneme level. We evaluated the reading ability by the reading speed, the reading errors, and the number of pauses while reading sentences aloud. RESULTS: The task performances of the dyslexic group on all three phonological awareness tasks were significantly lower than those of the control group. Stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed that the mora counting task and the rhyming letter task most significantly explained the reading speed and number of reading pauses. The mora reversal task of words, together with the antegraded digit span, significantly explained the reading errors. CONCLUSIONS: Japanese dyslexics showed deficits of phonological awareness both at the mora and the phoneme levels. Phonological awareness must be crucial for acquiring the ability of decoding phonograms, including Japanese kana.     

Reading skills and phonological awareness acquisition in Down syndrome

Background Although reading abilities play a fundamental role in the acquisition of personal autonomy, up until now studies investigating these abilities in Down syndrome (DS) are aimed at defining educational or rehability acquisition. However, studies describing the relationship between reading and phonological awareness in individuals with DS by comparing them to typically developing children often report contradictory results. The aim of this study is to explore reading and phonological awareness skills in a group of participants with DS. Methods We administered reading and phonological processing ability tests to 17 DS individuals and to 17 reading‐age‐matched typically developing children. Results Concerning reading abilities, participants with DS were impaired on non‐word reading and on interpreting accuracy of non‐homographic homophones. Their passage comprehension was also limited. Comparable ability was reported in the two groups on irregular word reading and passage reading tasks. Regarding phonological awareness ability, individuals with DS showed lower performances on several tasks, such as rhyming, deletion and syllable segmentation. Conclusions People with DS show particular failure on non‐word reading, a task where correct decoding is only partially influenced by lexical access or semantic context. Correct non‐word reading mainly requires the use of the grapheme–phoneme conversion process. This process is based on the efficiency of phonological awareness abilities, which are partly impaired in people with DS. The rehabilitative implications of these findings are discussed.     

Contributions of phonological awareness,phonological short-term memory,and rapid automated naming,toward decoding ability in students with mild intellectual disability

Reading decoding ability is a fundamental skill to acquire word-specific orthographic information necessary for skilled reading. Decoding ability and its underlying phonological processing skills have been heavily investigated typically among developing students. However, the issue has rarely been noticed among students with intellectual disability who commonly suffer from reading decoding problems. This study is aimed at determining the contributions of phonological awareness, phonological short-term memory, and rapid automated naming, as three well known phonological processing skills, to decoding ability among 60 participants with mild intellectual disability of unspecified origin ranging from 15 to 23 years old. The results of the correlation analysis revealed that all three aspects of phonological processing are significantly correlated with decoding ability. Furthermore, a series of hierarchical regression analysis indicated that after controlling the effect of IQ, phonological awareness, and rapid automated naming are two distinct sources of decoding ability, but phonological short-term memory significantly contributes to decoding ability under the realm of phonological awareness.     

Phonological awareness in children with Down syndrome

Research in the area of phonological awareness has mainly focused on the nature of the relationship between reading ability and awareness of phonemes. However, a recent study of phonological awareness in children with Down syndrome questioned the existence of any necessary relationship (Cossu, Rossini & Marshall, 1993). This paper describes a study of phonological awareness in children with Down syndrome with varying levels of reading ability. The sample consisted of 10 male and 7 female children with Down syndrome (aged 9 years 2 months to 14 years 5 months). All children received a battery of tests which consisted of assessments of: 1) phonological awareness, 2) reading and spelling competence, 3) non-word reading and spelling ability, and 4) non-verbal measures. Children with Down syndrome demonstrated measurable levels of phonological awareness. Significant positive correlations were found between phonological awareness and: reading and spelling competence, ability to spell non-words and non-verbal measures.     

Differences on morphological and phonological processing between typically developing children and children with Down syndrome

It is widely acknowledged that people with Down syndrome (Ds) have less highly developed morphosyntactic abilities than typically developing (TD) children. However, little is known about the morphological processing of this population. In this paper we carry out two experiments in which the morphological Base Frequency (BF) effect is explored in both groups. The aim of the experiments is to carry out an in-depth exploration of morphological processing in children with Ds and TD children. In the first experiment children performed a definition task; in the second children had to provide a plural form for singular words. The results show a significant BF effect in only the first experiment. In the second experiment this morphological variable does not reach significance, but the variable we called Ending phoneme (a phonological variable that refers to the last phoneme of the bases prior to the addition of plural morphemes) does. The results also show that children with Ds score significantly below the two control groups in both experiments, with no significant differences between control groups. We go on to discuss morphological processing in children with and without Ds, the role of the two tasks carried out (paying special attention to the role played by working memory), and the possible relationship between our results and morphosyntactic deficits described in the literature.     

Effects of phonological contrast on auditory word discrimination in children with and without reading disability: a magnetoencephalography (MEG) study

Poor readers perform worse than their normal reading peers on a variety of speech perception tasks, which may be linked to their phonological processing abilities. The purpose of the study was to compare the brain activation patterns of normal and impaired readers on speech perception to better understand the phonological basis in reading disability. Whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) was recorded as good and poor readers, 7–13 years of age, performed an auditory word discrimination task. We used an auditory oddball paradigm in which the ‘deviant’ stimuli (/bat/, /kat/, /rat/) differed in the degree of phonological contrast (one versus three features) from a repeated standard word (/pat/). Both good and poor readers responded more slowly to deviants that were phonologically similar compared to deviants that were phonologically dissimilar to the standard word. Source analysis of the MEG data using minimum norm estimation (MNE) showed that compared to good readers, poor readers had reduced left-hemisphere activation to the most demanding phonological condition reflecting their difficulties with phonological processing. Furthermore, unlike good readers, poor readers did not show differences in activation as a function of the degree of phonological contrast. These results are consistent with a phonological account of reading disability.     

Differential effects of orthographic and phonological consistency in cortex for children with and without reading impairment

One of the central challenges in mastering English is becoming sensitive to consistency from spelling to sound (i.e. phonological consistency) and from sound to spelling (i.e. orthographic consistency). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined the neural correlates of consistency in 9–15-year-old Normal and Impaired Readers during a rhyming task in the visual modality. In line with our previous study [Bolger, D. J., Hornickel, J., Cone, N. E., Burman, D. D., & Booth, J. R. (in press). Neural correlates of orthographic and phonological consistency effects in children. Human Brain Mapping], for Normal Readers, lower phonological and orthographic consistency were associated with greater activation in several regions including bilateral inferior/middle frontal gyri, bilateral anterior cingulate cortex as well as left fusiform gyrus. Impaired Readers activated only bilateral anterior cingulate cortex in response to decreasing consistency. Group comparisons revealed that, relative to Impaired Readers, Normal Readers exhibited a larger response in this network for lower phonological consistency whereas orthographic consistency differences were limited. Lastly, brain–behavior correlations revealed a significant relationship between skill (i.e. Phonological Awareness and non-word decoding) and cortical consistency effects for Impaired Readers in left inferior/middle frontal gyri and left fusiform gyrus. Impaired Readers with higher skill showed greater activation for higher consistency. This relationship was reliably different from that of Normal Readers in which higher skill was associated with greater activation for lower consistency. According to single-route or connectionist models, these results suggest that Impaired Readers with higher skill devote neural resources to representing the mapping between orthography and phonology for higher consistency words, and therefore do not robustly activate this network for lower consistency words.     

Anatomical properties of the arcuate fasciculus predict phonological and reading skills in children

For more than a century, neurologists have hypothesized that the arcuate fasciculus carries signals that are essential for language function; however, the relevance of the pathway for particular behaviors is highly controversial. The primary objective of this study was to use diffusion tensor imaging to examine the relationship between individual variation in the microstructural properties of arcuate fibers and behavioral measures of language and reading skills. A second objective was to use novel fiber-tracking methods to reassess estimates of arcuate lateralization. In a sample of 55 children, we found that measurements of diffusivity in the left arcuate correlate with phonological awareness skills and arcuate volume lateralization correlates with phonological memory and reading skills. Contrary to previous investigations that report the absence of the right arcuate in some subjects, we demonstrate that new techniques can identify the pathway in every individual. Our results provide empirical support for the role of the arcuate fasciculus in the development of reading skills.     

Differential outcomes effect in children and adults with down syndrome

In previous studies, researchers have demonstrated that learning of symbolic relations is facilitated when a particular outcome is associated with each relation to be learned. In the present study, we extend this differential outcomes procedure to children and adults with Down syndrome who had to learn a symbolic conditional discrimination task. Participants showed a better terminal accuracy and a faster learning of the task when the alternative correct responses were each followed by unique different outcomes than when nondifferential outcomes were arranged. These findings confirm that the differential outcomes procedure can be a useful tool to ameliorate discriminative learning deficits and demonstrate the benefits of this procedure for people with Down syndrome.     

Delays in the reading and spelling of children with cerebral palsy: Associations with phonological and visual processes

BackgroundThis investigation addresses the question of whether there exists a significant discrepancy in the cognitive abilities of children with cerebral palsy (CP) who, despite the presence of age appropriate communication and language, have reading and spelling delays.AimsWe wanted to discover whether there was a relationship between the phonological and visual perceptual abilities of children with CP and their progress in reading and spelling.Methods and proceduresFifteen children with CP (aged between 6:9 years and 11:6 years) were assessed on reading and spelling; communication and language; non-verbal reasoning; phonological processing; and visual perception.Outcomes and resultsTen of the children had very weak reading and spelling skills. Five children had (mostly) age appropriate scores of reading and spelling. No differences were found between these two groups in non-verbal reasoning or communication and language. However, phonological abilities, visual sequential memory and perception of visuospatial relationships were found to be related to reading and spelling.Conclusions and implicationsThe findings suggest that children with CP are at risk for reading and spelling delays when they have poor phonological processing, visual sequential memory and perception of visuospatial relationships. The implications of the findings for classroom practice are discussed.     

Memory and phonological awareness in children with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy compared to a matched control group

PURPOSE: In a previous study we demonstrated children with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy have normal intelligence and language ability. However, difficulties in verbal and visual memory and aspects of phonological awareness were found compared to normative data. To address the methodological limitations related to the use of normative data, we compared the same cohort of children with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy to a matched control group. METHOD: Controls (n=40) matched on age and gender to the Benign Rolandic Epilepsy cohort underwent neuropsychological assessment. The life functioning of the control group was assessed using a modified version of the Quality of Life in Childhood Epilepsy Questionnaire (QOLCE). RESULTS: The study confirmed the previous findings of memory and phonological awareness difficulties. In addition, the children with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy had significantly lower IQ scores than the matched control group. Paired sample t-tests showed that on 8 of 11 QOLCE scales, children with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy were rated by parents as having poorer life functioning compared to matched controls, including lower parental ratings on the subscales of memory and language. DISCUSSION: Benign Rolandic Epilepsy has an excellent seizure prognosis, but this study further emphasizes potential cognitive difficulties. Using an age and gender matched control group, the previous findings of memory and phonological awareness difficulties were validated. These problems in cognition were also identified by parents of children with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy as problematic and impacting upon the child's quality of life.