Preschool impairments in auditory processing and speech perception uniquely predict future reading problems
Section snippets
Participants
Sixty-two native Dutch-speaking children with normal hearing participated. None of them had a history of brain damage, psychiatric disorder, hearing or visual problems. They were first tested in the last year of kindergarten, i.e. the year before the onset of formal reading instruction (mean age = 5 years 6 months). They were subsequently tested in first grade (mean age = 6 years 10 months) and in third grade (mean age = 8 years 4 months), by which time they had received two years and two months of
Tests for auditory temporal processing
Auditory processing was assessed with two psychophysical threshold tests. In the FM-detection test participants had to detect a 2 Hz sinusoidal frequency modulation of a 1 kHz carrier tone with varying modulation depth. Threshold was defined as the minimum depth of frequency deviation required to detect the modulation. In the GAP-detection test participants had to detect a silent interval (gap) in a white noise stimulus. Threshold was defined as the minimum gap length required for detecting the
Group comparisons
Preschool speech-in-noise perception data of one child were discarded because of equipment failure. Results on letter knowledge, thresholds for FM and GAP detection and estimated slopes for categorical perception were log-transformed to obtain normal distributions. Post-hoc analyses were corrected for multiple comparisons using Tukey procedure.
Average FM and GAP detection thresholds for the three groups of children, estimated in kindergarten and first grade, are displayed in Fig. 1a and b. For
Discussion
There exists considerable evidence that low-level auditory processing and speech perception are impaired in individuals with dyslexia, in addition to their phonological impairments, and that performance on these measures is correlated with literacy achievement. However, the nature of this association remains largely unknown. The present study applied a longitudinal design to investigate whether auditory processing and speech perception assessed in kindergarten before the start of formal reading
Conflict of interest
None.
Acknowledgements
Bart Boets is a post-doctoral research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders. Maaike Vandermosten is a junior research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders. The research was financed by the fund for Scientific Research Flanders, Grant G0216.02 and G0331.08, and by a grant of the Research Council of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, OT/07/034. We are grateful to all children, teachers and schools that participated in this study.
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