IMPORTANCE OF PHONOLOGICAL SKILLS AND UNDERLYING PROCESSES TO READING ACHIEVEMENT A study on dyslexic and specific language impaired children1

In this study we compared dyslexic children and specific language impaired (SLI) children on phonological skills and underlying processes, i.e. working memory and auditory perception. Problems with phonological skills and underlying processes occur in both dyslexic and SLI children. However, dyslexic children experience particularly problems in word recognition, while a considerable number of SLI children develop relatively good reading skills. What is the importance of phonological skills and underlying processes to reading achievement? Results show differences in degree of problems between dyslexic and SLI children. Patterns of results of performance between groups differ. This could imply that both groups differ in (other) underlying skills which explain poor performance on tasks of this study but are not necessarily related to reading achievement.