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© 2019 The Australian Psychological Society Objective: Adopting a socio-ecological perspective, we used data extracted from clinical casefiles to investigate factors associated with externalising and internalising problems in a large, representative sample of children with a diagnosis of dyslexia. Method: This study is a secondary analysis of data collected by the Dyslexia-SPELD Foundation in Western Australia. Casefiles for school-aged children who had received a dyslexia diagnosis in 2014 and 2015 were identified (n = 1,235), and a subset of casefiles were randomly selected for data extraction (n = 454). Of the sample, 58% (n = 262) were male, 42% (n = 192) were female. Ages ranged between 6 and 17 years (M = 12.32, SD = 3.07). Casefiles include results from assessments of literacy-related achievement, as well as parent-reported information on behavioural and socio-emotional development. Results: After controlling for child age, gender, and reading ability, it was found that low self-esteem, difficulties in emotion regulation, and social skills difficulties were all associated with externalising problems. Additionally, low self-esteem, difficulties in emotion regulation, and bullying victimisation were all associated with internalising problems. Peer relationship difficulties were indirectly associated with both externalising and internalising problems through associations with low self-esteem and difficulties in emotion regulation. Conclusion: Self-esteem, bullying victimisation, emotion regulation, social skills, and peer problems are salient correlates of externalising and internalising problems in children with a diagnosis of dyslexia. Implications for intervention are discussed, both universal school-based mental health promotion programs, as well as more targeted programs for children with dyslexia.

© 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. The attention network test (ANT) assesses efficiency across alerting, orienting, and executive components of visual attention. This study examined approaches to assessing auditory attention networks, and performance was compared to the visual ANT. Results showed (1) alerting was sufficiently elicited in a pitch discrimination and sound localization task, although these effects were unrelated, (2) weak orienting of attention was elicited through pitch discrimination, which varied based on ISI and conflict level, but robust orienting of attention was found through sound localization, and (3) executive control was sufficiently assessed in both pitch discrimination and sound localization tasks, but these effects were unrelated. Correlation analysis suggested that, unlike alerting and orienting, sound localization auditory executive control functions tap a shared attention network system. Overall, the results suggest that auditory ANT measures are largely task and modality specific, with sound localization offering potential to assess all three attention networks in a single task.

© The Author(s) 2018. Although children with developmental language disorder demonstrate poor inferential comprehension, few studies have evaluated the effect of interventions to improve inferencing. This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of a small-group intervention designed to improve oral inferential comprehension of narrative discourse. Thirty-seven 5- to 6-year-old children with developmental language disorder participated. The participants were randomly allocated to the oral inferential comprehension (IC) intervention or a control phonological awareness (PA) intervention. Small-group sessions took place twice a week over 8 weeks. Participants were assessed on narrative comprehension and phonological awareness skills pre- and post-intervention, and after a maintenance period of 8 weeks. Compared to the control PA group, the participants in the IC group demonstrated a significant increase in inferential comprehension scores from pre- to post-intervention, which was maintained over time. In addition, the IC group scored significantly higher than the PA group for inferential comprehension on a post-intervention generalization measure. There was no significant difference between the two groups for literal comprehension scores at any assessment point. The results demonstrate that the small-group intervention was effective at improving inferential comprehension of narratives in 5- to 6-year-old children with developmental language disorder. Additionally, generalized improvement was shown across the narrative context, and improvements were maintained two months following the intervention.

Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved. BACKGROUND: While studies confirm high prevalence of language disorder among justice-involved young people, little is known about the impact of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) on language among this population. It is also not clear how language skills vary according to language diversity in Australian youth justice settings, where a disproportionate number of justice-involved youth are Aboriginal and may not speak Standard Australian English (SAE) as their first language. Language skills are important to understand, as language disorder and language difference can lead to a mismatch between the communication skills of a young person and the communication skills of the justice workforce with whom they are communicating. In the highly verbal environments that are common to justice systems, language disorder and language difference may result in a young person misunderstanding legal information and expectations placed on them and not being adequately understood by the justice workforce. METHODS: This study examined the language skills of 98 young people sentenced to detention in Western Australia (WA), who participated in a cross-sectional study examining the prevalence of FASD. Language skills assessed using standardised and non-standardised tasks were analysed by the three major language groups identified: speakers of SAE, Aboriginal English and English as an additional language. RESULTS: We identified rich diversity of languages, and multilingualism was common. Most young people for whom English was not their first language demonstrated difficulties in SAE competence. Further, nearly one in two young people were identified with language disorder - over half of whom had language disorder associated with FASD. CONCLUSIONS: This study has documented language diversity and the prevalence of language disorder associated with FASD among a representative sample of youth sentenced to deten

© 2018 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists Background: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) demonstrate poor oral inferential comprehension. Research investigating the skills that underpin oral inferential comprehension in young children with DLD is necessary in order to better understand and improve inferential comprehension in this population. Aims: To profile the language and cognitive skills that contribute to oral inferential comprehension in young children with DLD. Methods & Procedures: Seventy-six children aged 5–6 years with a diagnosis of DLD were assessed on a wide range of language and cognitive measures. Oral inferential comprehension of narrative was the primary outcome measure. Outcomes & Results: Narrative macrostructure and microstructure, literal comprehension, vocabulary, phonological loop, and theory of mind were significant predictors of inferential comprehension in bivariate analyses. However, multivariate regression analysis indicated that only narrative retell macrostructure and theory of mind contributed a significant amount of unique variance to inferential comprehension. Conclusions & Implications: This study profiled the skills contributing to oral inferential comprehension in young children with DLD, to support the clinical and theoretical understanding of the ability in this population. The findings have implications for future intervention studies.

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) among young people in youth detention in Australia. Neurodevelopmental impairments due to FASD can predispose young people to engagement with the law. Canadian studies identified FASD in 11%–23% of young people in corrective services, but there are no data for Australia. Design: Multidisciplinary assessment of all young people aged 10–17 years 11 months and sentenced to detention in the only youth detention centre in Western Australia, from May 2015 to December 2016. FASD was diagnosed according to the Australian Guide to the Diagnosis of FASD. Participants: 99 young people completed a full assessment (88% of those consented; 60% of the 166 approached to participate); 93% were male and 74% were Aboriginal. Findings: 88 young people (89%) had at least one domain of severe neurodevelopmental impairment, and 36 were diagnosed with FASD, a prevalence of 36% (95% CI 27% to 46%). Conclusions: This study, in a representative sample of young people in detention in Western Australia, has documented a high prevalence of FASD and severe neurodevelopmental impairment, the majority of which had not been previously identified. These findings highlight the vulnerability of young people, particularly Aboriginal youth, within the justice system and their significant need for improved diagnosis to identify their strengths and difficulties, and to guide and improve their rehabilitation.

© 2018 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. Background: Fluent word reading is a key characteristic of skilled reading, yet most children with reading disorders have impaired word-reading skills. Previous research has demonstrated that multi-component interventions targeting phonemic awareness and the alphabetic principle are effective for children with reading disorders. However, about 25% of children fail to respond to these interventions. While it has been difficult to isolate the active ingredient, the findings of some studies suggest that tasks targeting phonological recoding and orthographic processing are essential elements in improving decoding. Aims: To develop and evaluate an intervention that specifically targets phonological recoding and orthographic processing (a decoding intervention) for children with persistent word-reading impairment. Methods & Procedures: A single-subject crossover design with multiple treatments was used to examine the efficacy of the decoding intervention (15 × 20-min sessions) compared with a language intervention that controlled for individual therapy time. Eight children (aged 7:6-8:11 years) with persistent word-reading impairment were randomly assigned to one of two intervention sequences. The effect of the decoding intervention was evaluated by (1) changes in decoding accuracy measured by performance on researcher-developed non-word lists; and (2) generalization to other standardized measures of reading. Outcomes & Results: The results showed that all participants demonstrated significant gains in non-word reading on researcher-developed non-word lists and standardized measures of non-word-reading accuracy and efficiency. Trends for improvement on standardized measures of word-reading efficiency, text-reading accuracy and reading comprehension were observed. Conclusions & Implications: This decoding intervention significantly improved non-word decoding skills in all participants who had not responded to previous

Background: Phonological awareness is an important skill underpinning the development of early literacy. Given the central role of parents in supporting the development of children’s early literacy skills, and that poor parental phonological awareness is associated with poorer child literacy outcomes, it is possible that improving parent phonological awareness may aid literacy development for at-risk children. This study is a preliminary evaluation of a program aiming to improve phonological awareness skills of parents in low socioeconomic status communities, and also provide these parents with strategies to support their child’s literacy development. Methods: After completing the program, participants were asked if it had helped them learn about how to assist their child’s reading and spelling, whether they planned on using the resources provided, and if they would be likely to attend a future workshop building on the Boost program. Phonological awareness measures (rhyme, syllable, and phoneme level), and measures of overall confidence in performance on the phonological awareness tasks, were administered both before and after attending the program. Results: Almost all parents indicated that the program helped with learning how to assist their child’s reading and spelling, that they would use the resources provided, and would likely attend a future workshop. Significant increases in pre- to post-program phonological awareness scores were obtained at the rhyme and phoneme level. Conclusion: The program and associated resources appear acceptable to parents in communities with high rates of literacy problems and improved parents’ phonological awareness skills. However, findings are preliminary and further evaluation using more rigorous methodologies and testing whether improvements in parents’ phonological awareness translate into better literacy outcomes for children is needed.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Background: Despite a growing literature characterising connected speech and discourse impairments associated with primary progressive aphasia (PPA), intervention in PPA has focused predominantly on lexical retrieval and picture-naming treatments, with limited generalisation of therapy gains reported. Recent developments in the post-stroke aphasia literature with discourse-level approaches have provided highly promising findings for the generalisation of language gains to everyday communication, and an opportunity to investigate whether the same benefits may be found in the PPA population. Aims: This study evaluated the effectiveness of a discourse intervention in two individuals with PPA to determine whether significant improvements were seen in word retrieval and discourse organisation in everyday discourse. Methods & Procedures: KW, a 54-year-old man, who presented with semantic variant PPA, and AS, a 59-year-old woman, presenting with logopenic variant PPA, completed the NARNIA intervention programme (Whitworth, Leitão et al., 2015) in 20 sessions over a 10-week period. Discourse performance was sampled prior to intervention across 10 tasks involving four different genres, at one time point, and compared to performance immediately and four weeks post intervention. The multilevel intervention protocol aimed to increase awareness of word retrieval, sentence structure, and macrostructure of a range of discourse genre. Outcomes & Results: Both participants made significant gains in discourse production immediately after intervention and when reassessed four weeks later, in the absence of change on naming tasks and in the context of stable overall cognitive performance. Significant gains were seen in the amount of overall output, noun and verb usage, and the number of body elements in macrostructure in everyday discourse in topics that were not trained in treatment. Further to the findings of the original N

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupEarly identification of phonological disorders is important for Speech Language Pathologists who assess and treat children aged under three years. Normative data justifies identification and standard scores can evaluate intervention that might prevent the negative consequences associated with phonological disorder. Two studies evaluated the reliability and predictive validity of the Toddler Phonology Test (TPT). Study 1 assessed 18 Australian toddlers, comparing their performance with normative data and reassessing them one month later to examine test–retest reliability. Study 2 assessed the predictive validity of the TPT’s quantitative and qualitative normative data by reassessing 24 British children between four and nine months after their first assessment and examining number and type of errors. Study 1 found no significant difference between the first and second assessment one month later for percent consonants and vowels correct but a drop in the number of atypical errors. Positive correlations for all performance measures showed strong test–retest ranking for children. Study 2 indicated that both quantitative and qualitative TPT data predicted phonological development over 4–9 months. Case data suggested that phonological disorder was best predicted by qualitative data. The results indicated that phonological disorder can be reliably diagnosed at two years of age.

Purpose: This study compared the effectiveness of two grammar treatment procedures for children with specific language impairment. Method: A double-blind superiority trial with cluster randomization was used to compare a cueing procedure, designed to elicit a correct production following an initial error, to a recasting procedure, which required no further production. Thirty-one 5-year-old children with specific language impairment participated in 8 small group, classroom-based treatment sessions. Fourteen children received the cueing approach and 17 received the recasting approach. Results: The cueing group made significantly more progress over the 8-week treatment period than the recasting group. There was a medium–large treatment effect in the cueing group and a negligible effect size in the recasting group. The groups did not differ in maintenance of treatment effects 8 weeks after treatment. In single-subject analyses, 50% of children in the cueing group and 12% in the recasting group showed a significant treatment effect. Half of these children maintained the treatment effect 8 weeks later. Conclusion: Treatment that used a structured cueing hierarchy designed to elicit a correct production following a child’s error resulted in significantly greater improvement in expressive grammar than treatment that provided a recast following an error.

Objective: This study aimed to provide a comprehensive working memory profile of a group of children with established poor reading ability. Methods: Participants included a group of established “poor readers” and a group of age- and gender-matched controls with typically developing reading ability. The participants completed a comprehensive battery of assessments examining four components of working memory—the central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer. Results: As predicted, the poor reading group scored significantly lower than the typically developing reading group on measures of the phonological loop and central executive. There were no significant differences between the two groups on measures of the visuospatial sketchpad or episodic buffer. Contrary to predictions, a subgroup of poor readers with poor visuospatial working memory was not found, further highlighting the inconsistent findings in this area of working memory. Conclusions: The results provide support for past research findings of deficits in the phonological loop and central executive of poor readers. The finding of typical episodic buffer functioning demonstrates the potential to draw on this relative strength in implementing interventions with poor readers. This implicates the importance of increasing awareness of specific working memory deficits in poor readers, and may guide future research into more effective teaching strategies and interventions for this population.

Background: Developing effective interventions for people with aphasia, which both ameliorate impaired language and directly impact on real-life communication, is a key focus of aphasia research. While single-word and sentence-level models of language processing have informed effective interventions, there is limited evidence of intervention approaches that extend the principles from these models to discourse. Aims: This pilot randomised controlled trial (RCT) aimed to compare a novel multilevel intervention, a Novel Approach to Real-life communication: Narrative Intervention in Aphasia (NARNIA), with usual care (UC), with a view to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the approach and estimate effect sizes to design and power a definitive trial. Methods & Procedures: In a prospective, single-blind, RCT, 14 people with mild to moderate aphasia, between 2 and 165 months following stroke, were randomised to the two interventions. Both therapy conditions were delivered four times weekly over 5 weeks. The NARNIA intervention specifically combined word retrieval, sentence production, and discourse macrostructure across a range of everyday discourse (ED) genres. UC comprised any speech-language therapy routinely used in clinical practice, individually tailored to meet the assessed needs of the participant. The Curtin University Discourse Protocol (CUDP) was used to measure verb access, sentence production, and discourse structure. Outcomes & Results: Eight participants were assigned to the NARNIA intervention and six participants to UC. No significant differences were present in baseline prognostic factors between the two groups prior to intervention. Following intervention, orientation aspects of macrostructure were significantly greater in the NARNIA group on ED measures than in the UC group, with no other between-group differences found. Significant changes were, however, seen within groups across ED genres. The NARNIA group made significant gains across all lan

© 2015 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. Background: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) often experience word-learning difficulties, which are suggested to originate in the early stage of word learning: fast mapping. Some previous research indicates significantly poorer fast mapping capabilities in children with SLI compared with typically developing (TD) counterparts, with a range of methodological factors impacting on the consistency of this finding. Research has explored key issues that might underlie fast mapping difficulties in children with SLI, with strong theoretical support but little empirical evidence for the role of phonological short-term memory (STM). Additionally, further research is required to explore the influence of receptive vocabulary on fast mapping capabilities. Understanding the factors associated with fast mapping difficulties that are experienced by children with SLI may lead to greater theoretically driven word-learning intervention. Aims: To investigate whether children with SLI demonstrate significant difficulties with fast mapping, and to explore the related factors. It was hypothesized that children with SLI would score significantly lower on a fast mapping production task compared with TD children, and that phonological STM and receptive vocabulary would significantly predict fast mapping production scores in both groups of children. Methods & Procedures: Twenty-three children with SLI (mean = 64.39 months, SD = 4.10 months) and 26 TD children (mean = 65.92 months, SD = 2.98) were recruited from specialist language and mainstream schools. All participants took part in a unique, interactive fast-mapping task whereby nine novel objects with non-word labels were presented and production accuracy was assessed. A non-word repetition test and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Fourth Edition (PPVT-IV) were also administered as measures of phonological STM capacity and receptive vocabulary, respectively. Outcome

It has been hypothesized that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulty processing sound-based information, including storing and accessing phonological representations in the lexicon. Tasks are emerging in the literature that provide a measure of the quality of stored phonological representations, without requiring a verbal response. This article describes the performance of children with specific language impairment (SLI) (n = 21), typically developing children matched for age (n = 21), and typically developing children matched for language (n = 21) on two measures of phonological representations – the Quality of Phonological Representations (QPR) and the Silent Deletion of Phonemes (SDOP) – and a measure of phonological awareness, the Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test: Revised (SPAT-R). As predicted the age-matched (AM) group demonstrated significantly better performance on all tasks than the SLI group. The AM group performed significantly better than the language-matched (LM) group on the SDOP and SPAT tasks, but not significantly differently on the QPR task. The SLI group performed significantly better than the LM group on both the SDOP and SPAT, but their performance on the QPR was significantly weaker than the LM group. The findings of this study provide support for the notion of lower quality phonological representations in children with SLI thus placing them at increased risk of ongoing language and literacy difficulties.

In a retrospective study of prelinguistic communication development, clinically referred preschool children (n = 9) aged 3–4 years, who as infants had failed a community-based screening program, were evaluated for features of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Four children showed no features and either delayed or normal language, five had from three-to-seven CAS features and all exhibited delayed language. These children were matched by age with 21 children with typically-developing (TD) speech and language skills. Case-control comparisons of retrospective data from 9 months of age for two participants with more severe features of CAS at preschool age showed a dissociated pattern with low expressive quotients on the Receptive-Expressive Emergent Language Assessment-Second Edition (REEL–2) and records of infrequent babbling, but normal receptive quotients. However, other profiles were observed. Two children with milder CAS features showed poor receptive and expressive development similar to other clinically referred children with no CAS features, and one child with severe CAS features showed poor receptive but normal expressive developmental milestones at 9 months and records of frequent babbling. Results suggest some but not all children with features of suspected CAS have a selective deficit originating within speech motor development.

It has been hypothesized that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulty processing sound-based information, including storing and accessing phonological representations in the lexicon. Tasks are emerging in the literature that provide a measure of the quality of stored phonological representations, without requiring a verbal response. This article describes the performance of children with specific language impairment (SLI) (n = 21), typically developing children matched for age (n = 21), and typically developing children matched for language (n = 21) on two measures of phonological representations – the Quality of Phonological Representations (QPR) and the Silent Deletion of Phonemes (SDOP) – and a measure of phonological awareness, the Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test: Revised (SPAT-R). As predicted the age-matched (AM) group demonstrated significantly better performance on all tasks than the SLI group. The AM group performed significantly better than the language-matched (LM) group on the SDOP and SPAT tasks, but not significantly differently on the QPR task. The SLI group performed significantly better than the LM group on both the SDOP and SPAT, but their performance on the QPR was significantly weaker than the LM group. The findings of this study provide support for the notion of lower quality phonological representations in children with SLI thus placing them at increased risk of ongoing language and literacy difficulties.

Low quality, imprecise phonological representations have been hypothesized as an underlying deficit in Specific Language Impairment (SLI). This research compared performance on a silent judgement task and a multisyllabic word naming task using the same 10 words, for 21 children with SLI (mean age 7;6), 21 age-matched (AM) (mean age 7;6) and 21 language-matched (LM) (mean age 5;6) peers. The children with SLI demonstrated significantly poorer performance on the judgement task than either AM or LM peers, while performance on the naming task followed a developmental sequence. There was no correlation between the ability to correctly reject inaccurate productions and the ability to correctly name the items. These results support the suggestion of separate input and output phonological representations and that speech output errors should not necessarily be interpreted as indicative of underlying weakness in phonological representations. The research also highlights the value of individually-designed tasks to measure the input phonological representations for specific words.

This study aimed to investigate foster carers’ knowledge and experience of speech and language development. Foster carers in Western Australia who provided long-term care for children under the age of 5 were selected to participate. This paper reports on data obtained from 20 foster carers using written postal questionnaires. The questionnaire asked foster carers about their daily routine with their foster child, their knowledge of speech and language development and topics related to speech and language development on which they would like further information. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with a subset of 12 foster carers and the results are presented in Part 2. The findings of this study provide speech pathologists with information regarding the needs of this population in terms of therapy services for children and in terms of educational topics of interest for foster carers.

Speeded verbal repetition of spoken words in simple and primed conditions was used to examine lexical processing deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI). During simple verbal repetition, children with SLI (n=18) were slower at repeating abstract verbs compared to concrete verbs. This same effect was not observed for nouns. Age matched typically developing (TD) children (n=18) showed no effect of concreteness for either verbs or nouns. During primed verbal repetition the children heard prime-target word pairs (e.g., lion-tiger) on each trial. Semantically related primes speeded verbal repetition for the TD but not SLI group, suggesting inefficient spreading activation within lexical semantics for children with SLI. Phonologically related primes (e.g., tiny) slowed verbal repetition of the target (e.g., tiger) in both groups, suggesting children with SLI were similar to their age-matched peers in lexical phonological competition. The results are generally supportive of graded deficits in lexical processing skill in SLI consistent with connectionist accounts, and approaches to therapy that combine semantic and phonological dimensions at the word level.

Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) are known to exhibit difficulties on auditory working memory (WM) tasks. This study investigated the impact of providing visual support on children's performance on an auditory WM task. Three groups of 18 children participated. The groups were children with SLI, age matched, and language matched control children. Participants completed 4 digit recall tasks using different combinations of auditory and visual input and output for a digits forwards (DF) recall condition in the first session and a digits backwards (DB) recall condition in the final session. The digit recall tasks accompany this manuscript and can be downloaded from http://www.informaworld.com/ijslp. For the DF tasks, the SLI and age matched groups recalled significantly more sequences when visual support was provided in input and output, and all groups showed a significant benefit from visual support for the DB condition. These findings provide further evidence that the provision of visual information supports working memory performance in children with SLI and typically developing children. This has implications for the support strategies currently used to assist children with WM difficulties.

This paper asks speech pathologists to consider the impact of ethical dilemmas upon their own work–life balance. In raising awareness of the impact of workplace ethical dilemmas on individuals, this paper challenges speech pathologists to consider how systemic responses, in addition to individual action, may assist in developing and maintaining an equilibrium between work and life.

Part 1 : The aim of this study was to discover the common approaches to service delivery used by speech pathologists in rural, remote and regional Australia, which factors affect the choice of approach, and the theoretical frameworks underpinning the selection and implementation of the service delivery approaches. A questionnaire containing both quantitative and qualitative questions was distributed to speech pathologists working in rural, remote and regional areas across Australia. There were 51 responses. This paper describes the profile of the clinicians who responded and the range of direct and indirect service delivery approaches currently being used. Part 2 explores the influence of context and philosophy on the selection of service delivery approaches.Part 2: This paper reports aspects of a larger study which investigated approaches to service delivery used by speech pathologists in rural, remote and regional Australia, factors affecting the choice of approach, and the frameworks underpinning the selection and implementation of the service delivery approaches. A questionnaire containing both quantitative and qualitative questions was distributed to speech pathologists working in rural, remote and regional areas across Australia. There were 51 responses. The results showed a diverse range of service delivery approaches primarily driven by contextual influences. The influence of a clinician’s underlying philosophical orientation was generally implicit rather than explicit. In many cases, service delivery approaches appeared to be driven by the workplace or health department guidelines, rather than the clinician’s own underlying theoretical framework

Background: Theoretical and empirical support now exists for the finding that many children with expressive phonological impairment experience problems in acquiring phonological awareness and early literacy skills. Few studies, however, have examined the long-term academic and literacy outcomes for this population, in particular as the students leave the final stages of primary school. Aims: The reported study forms the final stage of a longitudinal research project that tracked the phonological processing and literacy skills of a group of children with specific speech impairment from their first year at school (aged 5–6 years). The earlier data provided evidence of a relationship between speech impairment characterized by the presence of non-developmental error processes and weaker phonological awareness and literacy skills in the first 2–3 years at school. It was hypothesized that the effect of this relationship would continue to be apparent as the students completed the final stages of primary school. Methods & Procedures: Fourteen of the original set of 36 students were available for reassessment of their phonological processing, reading and spelling skills at age 12–13 years.Outcomes & Results: Those children with an original classification of non-developmental speech errors performed significantly more poorly than those with an original classification of developmental errors on phonological awareness and reading comprehension measures. Reading accuracy and spelling scores also showing a similar trend. Conclusions: These findings provide further evidence for the long-term impact of speech impairment. The follow-up data demonstrated ongoing difficulties for students who entered school with expressive speech impairment, particularly those whose speech errors were characterized by non-developmental error processes. The impact was apparent on tasks measuring phonological awareness, reading accuracy and spelling (skills that depend on good phonological processing sk

This article presents a case study to illustrate the application of theory and research to intervention for a child with dyslexia and auditory processing disorder (APD).The use of the speech processing profile developed by Joy Stackhouse and Bill Wells provided a framework for psycholinguistic based intervention for spelling and word learning. Strategies for addressing lexical retrieval/storage difficulties, word learning and spelling within this framework are discussed.

Speech and language impairment in preschool children is frequently a precursor of language and literacy difficulties that persist throughout childhood into adolescence and beyond. For the majority, the surface level symptoms of speech and language impairment change over time, but the underlying difficulties persist with negative impact on both spoken and written language development. Children with literacy difficulties are a heterogeneous group. A classification of reading difficulties is presented which is based on a simple model of reading (reading comprehension can be seen as the product of skills in decoding and listening comprehension). Three distinct subgroups of individuals with reading difficulties arise; those with dyslexia, those with a specific comprehension deficit and those with a broader based reading disability (language-based). This paper aims to describe each of these three groups, and present worldwide and local prevalence data (where available).

Parents of children with suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech (sCAS, n = 20), Specific Language Impairment (SLI, n = 20), and typically developing speech and language skills (TD, n = 20) participated in this study, which aimed to quantify and compare reports of early vocal development. Via a questionnaire, parents reported on their child's early babbling and vocalizations, along with other developmental milestones. Consistent with previous anecdotal reports and theoretical predictions, the sCAS children were reported to be significantly less vocal, less likely to babble, later in the emergence of first words and later in the emergence of two-word combinations than the TD children. However, on many (but not all) of the items, the SLI children were reported similarly to the sCAS group. Notable exceptions where the sCAS group differed significantly to the SLI group were with the percentage of children reported to have babbled and the reported age of emergence of two-word combinations. The results support previous anecdotal clinical suggestions relating to children with CAS but highlight the need for longitudinal studies to analyse speech and language trajectories over time.