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Research Article
October 2015

Rapid Naming and Phonemic Awareness in Children With Reading Disabilities and/or Specific Language Impairment: Differentiating Processes?

Publication: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Volume 58, Number 5
Pages 1538-1548

Abstract

Purpose

The objective of this study was to assess and compare the predictive values of group membership for rapid automatized naming (RAN) and phonemic awareness (PA) in Dutch school children with and without reading disabilities (RD) or specific language impairment (SLI).

Method

A composite word reading index and a formal SLI diagnosis were used to classify a total of 1,267 children aged 8 to 13 years old either as RD-only (n = 126), SLI-only (n = 21), comorbid (RD+SLI; n = 30), or typically developing (n = 1,090). RAN and PA were assessed with 4 standardized subtests. The clinical subgroups were compared to each other and contrasted with the control group.

Results

For each subgroup, results indicate substantial effect sizes of RAN and PA. However, the RD-only group seems to be more affected by poor RAN than the SLI-only group, whereas the 2 groups perform equally poorly on PA. The comorbid group was revealed as most severely impaired on all measurements.

Conclusions

In studying RD and SLI, this research indicates that it is important to distinguish between RD-only, SLI-only, and comorbid groups. The comorbid group shows additive effects of both disorders.

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Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Volume 58Number 5October 2015
Pages: 1538-1548
PubMed: 26163677

History

  • Received: Jan 22, 2014
  • Revised: Jul 24, 2014
  • Accepted: Jun 30, 2015
  • Published in issue: Oct 1, 2015

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Authors

Affiliations

Bartholomeus J. A. De Groot
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Kees P. Van den Bos
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Bieuwe F. Van der Meulen
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Alexander E. M. G. Minnaert
University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Notes

Disclosure: The authors have declared that no competing interests existed at the time of publication.
Correspondence to B. J. A. De Groot: [email protected]
Editor: Rhea Paul
Associate Editor: Thomas Klee

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