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Associated reading skills in children with a history of Specific Language Impairment (SLI).
Botting NF, Simkin Z, Conti-Ramsden GM
Reading and Writing (special issue). 2006;19:77-98.
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Abstract
A large cohort of 200 11-year-old children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) were assessed on basic reading accuracy and on reading comprehension as well as language tasks. Reading skills were examined descriptively and in relation to early language and literacy factors. Using stepwise regression analyses in which age and nonverbal IQ were controlled for, it was found that a single word reading measure taken at 7 years was unsurprisingly a strong predictor of the two different types of reading ability. However, even with this measure included, a receptive syntax task (TROG) entered when reading accuracy score was the DV. Furthermore, a test of expressive syntax / narrative (the Bus Story; Renfrew, 1991) and a receptive syntax task (Test for Reception of Grammar: TROG; Bishop, 1982) completed at 7 years entered into the model for word reading accuracy. When early reading accuracy was excluded from the analyses, early phonological skills (Goldman Fristoe Test of Articulation, 1986) also entered as a predictor of both reading accuracy and comprehension at 11 years. The group of children with a history of SLI were then divided into those with no literacy difficulties at 11 (those scoring above 1sd from mean on accuracy and comprehension) and those with some persisting literacy impairment (below 1sd on either accuracy or comprehension tasks). Using stepwise logistic regression, and again controlling for IQ and age, 7 year receptive syntax score (but not tests of phonology, expressive vocabulary or expressive syntax/narrative) entered as a positive predictor of membership of the ‘no literacy problems’ group regardless of whether early reading accuracy was controlled for in step one. The findings are discussed in relation to the overlap of SLI and dyslexia and the long term sequelae of language impairment.