Early reading achievement in children with expressive phonological disorders

In this study, 30 children with expressive phonological disorders and 27 ch ildren with normally developing phonological and language abilities were ad ministered measures of expressive phonology, phonological awareness, and la nguage ability at the end of kindergarten. A year later, children were give n tests of reading achievement. Although the group with expressive phonolog ical disorders performed significantly less well than the control group on tests of reading achievement, a great deal of within-group variability was observed. Children with expressive phonological disorders were divided into those with good and poor reading outcomes and compared on measures of expr essive phonology, phonological awareness, and language ability. Children wi th poor reading outcomes had more severe expressive phonological disorders (as measured by a multisyllabic word and nonword repetition task; MULTI-PCC ), poorer phonological awareness, and poorer language skills than did child ren in the good reading outcome group. Hierarchical multiple regression ind icated that expressive phonology (as measured by MULTI-PCC) and phonologica l awareness in kindergarten accounted for significant amounts of variance i n first-grade reading achievement. Variability in children's expressive pho nology and phonological awareness may be a reflection of individual differe nces in their development of phonological representations. Clinical implica tions of these findings for identification and remediation of reading disab ilities are discussed.