Comparing Repetition, Writing, and Reading of Words & Nonwords in Children with SLI and Children with Dyslexia

AIMS: The aim of this study is to provide insight in the phonological processing of children with language impairment and children with dyslexia, in order to detect similarities and differences between these groups. Qualitative error analyses are performed on the repetition, writing, and reading of words and nonwords. METHOD: Ten children with language impairment, eight children with dyslexia and twenty-six typically developing children were asked to repeat, write, and read words and nonwords. All children were in the second or third year of school after kindergarten. Analyses were performed on production accuracy and types of errors made. Background measurements were conducted to examine differences in word reading skills, oral language skills, and phonological skills. RESULTS: The typically developing group scored significantly higher on the experimental tasks than the dyslexic and the language impaired group, who did not differ significantly from each other. Production accuracy of children with language impairment did not differ significantly on the repetition task and the reading task, whereas repetition accuracy was higher for the repetition task than for the reading task in the dyslexic group and the typically developing group. The writing tasks were found to be most difficult for all groups. Performances on nonword tasks were poorer than performances on Dutch word tasks. In the qualitative error analysis, the language impaired group scored below expected values on nonword writing and the dyslexic group scored below expected values on nonword reading. Substitution occurred more frequently in all tasks and in each group. Performances on the experimental tasks were correlated to measurements of phonological skills. CONCLUSIONS: Quantitative differences were found between the language impaired group and the dyslexic group on the experimental tasks. The findings of this research can be accommodated in the qualitative difference hypothesis