Nonword repetition and phonological awareness skills in preschoolers with and without speech sound disorders

The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationships between phonological awareness (PA) skills, types of speech sound errors, and nonword repetition skills. Ten preschoolers with typically developing speech (TD) and ten preschoolers with speech sound disorder (SSD), aged 4;0 (years; months) to 6;6 participated in the study. Eligible participants did not present with neurological, cognitive, or developmental disabilities such as cleft palate or autism spectrum disorder. We calculated the correlation between PA skills and nonword repetition performance of the children. In addition, a regression model was used to evaluate the degree to which phonological awareness skills could be predicted by the types of speech errors produced by the participants (typical speech errors, atypical speech errors, and distortions). Nonword repetition was significantly correlated with performance on the PA test, such that in general, participants who obtained poorer nonword repetition scores were found to have poorer PA skills. With regards to error types and PA skills, atypical errors predicted 12.5% of the variance in PA skills among TD participants. However, in children with SSD atypical errors did not contribute significant and unique variance to PA skills after controlling for age and nonverbal IQ. This data suggests that PA skills cannot be only inferred through the use of other measurements such as the SRT or speech sound errors produced