The nature of phonological deficits in children with speech and literacy difficulties

There is a large body of evidence showing that a child's speech processing skills are vitally important for language and literacy development. Difficulties in speech processing (phonological processing) are also the most common cause of reading difficulties. Despite this, many children with primary speech impairments go on to read very well. More research is needed to establish what types of phonological difficulties may lead to later literacy difficulties and what types do not. We will compare three groups of four to six year old children at risk of phonological difficulties: children with a family history of dyslexia, children in speech and language therapy, and children selected from mainstream classrooms as having below average speech processing. The children will be asked to complete a range of phonological processing tasks. The children will be compared to a typically developing control group of the same language age to and all of the groups will be retested six months later to assess whether different profiles link to differential progress in literacy. This research will help provide a basis for determining which types of phonological difficulties may cause later literacy difficulties and which may resolve.