Preschool impairments in auditory processing and speech perception uniquely predict future reading problems

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Abstract

Developmental dyslexia is characterized by severe reading and spelling difficulties that are persistent and resistant to the usual didactic measures and remedial efforts. It is well established that a major cause of these problems lies in poorly specified phonological representations. Many individuals with dyslexia also present impairments in auditory temporal processing and speech perception, but it remains debated whether these more basic perceptual impairments play a role in causing the reading problem. Longitudinal studies may help clarifying this issue by assessing preschool children before they receive reading instruction and by following them up through literacy development. The current longitudinal study shows impairments in auditory frequency modulation (FM) detection, speech perception and phonological awareness in kindergarten and in grade 1 in children who receive a dyslexia diagnosis in grade 3. FM sensitivity and speech-in-noise perception in kindergarten uniquely contribute to growth in reading ability, even after controlling for letter knowledge and phonological awareness. These findings indicate that impairments in auditory processing and speech perception are not merely an epiphenomenon of reading failure. Although no specific directional relations were observed between auditory processing, speech perception and phonological awareness, the highly significant concurrent and predictive correlations between all these variables suggest a reciprocal association and corroborate the evidence for the auditory deficit theory of dyslexia.

Research highlights

▶ Preschool auditory and speech perception impairments precede dyslexia in grade 3. ▶ FM sensitivity and speech-in-noise perception uniquely predict growth in reading. ▶ Longitudinal relations between auditory processing, speech perception and phonology.

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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