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Subject Area

Dermatology

Article Type

Original Study

Abstract

Objective To study the relationship between language disorders in children and phonological awareness (PA) to identify children with reading difficulties as early as possible. Background PA is an important determiner of success in learning to read and spell. Early speech and early language difficulties are considered to be risk factors associated with future reading difficulties. Children with language difficulties are particularly at risk for poor literacy outcomes. Patients and methods Fifty cases (aged from 5 to 8 years) with delayed language development of average intelligence quotient participated in our study at Phoniatrics unit outpatient clinic in Menoufia University Hospital, from March 2015 to March 2016. They were divided into three groups (A, B, and C) and assessed by Arabic Phonological Awareness Test and Standardized Arabic Language Test. The results of cases were compared with the results of 50 controls matched for age and sex. Moreover, the results of the PA test were correlated with the results of standardized Arabic language test. Results By comparing the performance of PA skills for cases and control in the three age groups, there were significant differences in all skills (P < 0.05), except in segmenting words into syllables (P = 0.06) and blending syllables (P = 0.1) in group A. By studying the correlation between PA age and total language age, receptive language age, expressive language age, and semantics age, there were highly significant positive correlations (P = 0.000). Significant positive correlation was found between PA age and articulation (P = 0.029). Moreover, there was a significant negative correlation between PA score and the gap between language age and chronological age (P = 0.045). Conclusion Children with specific language impairments require specific therapy that includes explicit focus on PA and letter identification.

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