PREDICTING DYSLEXIA FROM KINDERGARTEN - THE IMPORTANCE OF DISTINCTNESS OF PHONOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF LEXICAL ITEMS

THIS ARTICLE presents results from a longitudinal study of children of dyslexic and of normally reading parents. The children were followed from the beginning of kindergarten (at the age of 6, 1 year before rea ding instruction in Denmark) until the beginning of the second grade. Children of dyslexic parents were found to have an increased risk of d yslexia (a 4.3 odds ratio) when dyslexia was defined as poor phonologi cal recoding (poor reading of nonwords and pseudohomophones of real wo rds). All language measures in kindergarten were statistically signifi cant predictors of dyslexia. Logistic regression analyses with backwar ds stepwise selection indicated that three measures contributed indepe ndently to the prediction of dyslexia: letter naming, phoneme identifi cation, and distinctness of phonological representations. The measure of distinctness of phonological representations also contributed signi ficantly to the prediction of poor phoneme awareness in Grade 2-even w hen differences in early syllable and phoneme awareness, articulation, and productive and receptive vocabulary were accounted for. The resul ts suggest that the quality of phonological representations in the men tal lexicon is a determinant of the development of both segmental (e.g ., phoneme) awareness and of the acquisition of phonological recoding skills in reading.