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Literacy Investigation Brianna Huff
Question • How does a preschool student with significant speech productionimpairments acquire pre-literacy or reading skills, if that child cannot produce the sounds, detect the sound in various parts of the word, or recognize whether the words sound alike, rhyme or begin/end the same?
Definitions • Speech Impairment: general term to describe speech that is difficult to be understood • Lisp, stutter • Language impairment: general term that describes a disability with expressive or receptive language • Not talking, incorrect pronoun use-”her went to the store”, poor vocabulary, minimal word use, • Speech production impairment: analytical term, what specifically the child is doing, implies the child has an error pattern, child has been evaluated • Apraxia, phonological processing disorder-initial consonant deletion but can produce key sound • Pre-literacy skills: • Oral language, phonological awareness, knowledge of alphabet and their sounds, rhyming, spelling and comprehension
Definitions • Phonological awareness: awareness of sounds in language, awareness of rhymes, ability to talk about and manipulate sounds, understanding relationship between spoken and written language • Phonological awareness skills: Identifying rhymes, words that start/end the same, blending separated words into words, manipulating sounds in words by adding or deleting • Think phonics, (sounding out words, pre-reading)
Rationale • I became interested in this the minute I met Jeffery. He is so intelligent but has significant speech impairments. I wondered if his impairments could hinder his intelligence and his success in pre-literacy skills. I want to find the correlation, if one, between the two.
Strategy • I will interview Jeffery’s teacher and speech pathologist. • I will observe him in his classroom setting as well as during speech therapy. • I will interact with him, do activities with him and use a speech evaluation report to help with my investigation. • I will also research the issue to find more information.
Products • I plan to achieve an understanding of how speech impairments affect children’s learning and if they even do. • The outcome will enhance my learning because I will investigate an area that I may encounter as a future educator. • It will enhance the support of the child because I can share what I find out with his family and/or teacher, which will benefit them as well.
Hypothesis • I believe that having a speech sound production impairment will impact the child's pre-literacy skills; however not make them reading disabled. I feel the spelling will be a challenge.
The Impact of Developmental Speech and Language Impairments on the Acquisition of Literacy Skills • Children with developmental speech/language impairments are at higher risk for reading disability than typical peers • Studied literacy outcomes in children who have primary language impairments or PD but who are otherwise typically developing • Results: • Clear that children with language impairments fall behind their typical peers and may not master certain skills on target. 80% classified as RD. • Children with phonological disorders were not found to be at greater risk for reading impairments; however, they do tend to have more spelling difficulties than their peers.
Twenty-year Follow-up of Children With and Without Speech-Language Impairments: Family, Educational, Occupational and Quality of Life Outcomes • Not just pre-literacy outcomes • Long term prognosis for children with communication disorders • Described the family, educational, occupational and quality of life outcomes of 25-year-old participants who started at age 5 • 20 year prospective, longitudinal study of individuals with and without early speech and language impairments • Results: • Individuals with language impairments performed more poorly than those without disorders at Time 1-4 on all language, cognitive and academic measures
Pre-literacy Speech Sound Production Skill and Later Literacy Outcomes: A Study Using the Templin Archive • Children with speech sound disorder (SSD) tend to have poorer literacy outcomes than typically developing children • Studied the relationship between speech sound production skills in kindergarten children and their literacy outcomes (reading & spelling) in grades 1-3 with minimal speech therapy • Results: • Kindergartners with the most severe SSD scored more poorly in 1st and 2nd grade reading and 3rd grade spelling than the children with average speech sound production • Kindergartners with none to minor speech sound production disorders achieved superior literacy skills • SSD tends to be obvious proof that it does in fact influence literacy skills
Relationship Between Speech-sound Disorders and Early Literacy Skills in Preschool-Age Children: Impact of Comorbid Language Impairment • Studied the impact of isolated SSD and SSD with comorbid LI on literacy skills • Only article to mention SES • Preschool children with SSD and LI may benefit from instruction in pre-literacy skills in addition to language therapy • Results: • Early reading and writing scores were significantly lower for children with comorbid LI • Below average language skills in preschool place a child at risk for deficits in pre-literacy skills which may influence reading disabilities
Literacy Outcomes for Students with Speech Impairment: Long-term Follow-up • Many children with expressive phonological impairments experience problems in acquiring literacy skills • Tracked the phonological processing and literacy skills of children with speech impairments from kindergarten to 1st grade and then again at age 13 • Divided into 2 groups: Developmental and Non-developmental speech impairments • Results: • Children with non-developmental speech errors performed more poorlywith comprehension, accuracy and spelling • Showed ongoing difficulties for non-developmental group
Meet Jeffery • 5 year old preschool student • Head Start • Kindergarten next year • Apraxic-motor planning disorder where he hears the sound and goes to imitate it and his motor planning is just all off. • Baby-“dady” asks if he said it right, and he believes he has. Speech production impairment • Bottle- “doe tle” • Very Intelligent • Language has been assessed to be above average • Developmentally up to par for kindergarten • Recognizes and can read sight words- cat, book, girl, boy • Excellent drawer • Can draw all letters in logical way • Very creative • High amount of frustration because of apraxia, thinks he’s saying it right and people don’t understand him and sometimes does not recognize errors • Recognized rhyming words
Observation: Speech Therapy • Goal: Articulation Target and auditory discrimination • Understood rhyming after awhile • Doesn’t always recognize the individuals sounds • Mastered the “D” sound at the beginning of word--age appropriate • Cannot always discriminate the context sound like “ch” and “sh” • Can not discriminate “M” and “N” and interchanges the two which is impacted by his speech impairment which can affect his reading skills • Word cards-SLP modeled words and Jeffrey imitated, run through a few times to get a closer approximation of the sound • Drill in Speech therapy with a list of target speech words with one and two syllables • He talked about what he was doing • Needed prompted and cued to stay on task
Observation: Classroom Setting • Very distracted in classroom, door open and he was the first to get up to see what’s going on • Very active to participate, raises hand and has right answer but teacher does not always understand him • Eager to learn • Helpful • Friends with everyone-very social • Outgoing • Communicated with everyone
Interviews • Ronna Rebo-SLP • Rebecca Cardoni-Preschool teacher • Questions related to Jeffrey • Pre-reading was never assessed by SLP’s until 2009 so now they need to incorporate, what I saw in speech therapy was never done before
Analysis • Guarded concern that his impairment may impact Jeffrey’s pre-literacy skills • Although he is very smart it may counteract • His kindergarten teacher is aware • He will continue speech therapy • Hope is with those in place he will develop on target • After reading the articles, SSD is proven to impact reading skills negatively
Analysis • 2/5 articles found that poor speech sound production skills impacted the child’s pre-literacy skills in a negative way • 3/5 articles found that language impairments affected the child’s pre-literacy skills in a negative way • 1 differentiated between developmental and non-developmental impairments impacts on reading and non-developmental impairments affected pre-literacy skills more