Foundations of phonological awareness in preschool children with cerebral palsy

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Foundations of phonological awareness in
preschool children with cerebral palsy

• Marieke Peeters (16-11-2007)

MA Marieke Peeters1, prof. Dr. Ludo Verhoeven1,
Dr. Hans van Balkom2, prof. Dr. Jan de Moor1
1Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud
University Nijmegen, the Netherlands2 Research
Centre on Atypical Communication, Radboud
University Nijmegen Pontem, the Netherlands
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Theoretical background
Foundations of phonological awareness

• Earlier research
• Phonological awareness important precursor of
  reading development
• Rhyme one of the first phonological abilities
  that emerges
• Foundations of phonological awareness
• General IQ,
• speech perception,
• articulation accuracy,
• vocabulary
• auditory short-term memory (STM)
• Children with CP often additional impairments gt
  consequences for literacy

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Present study
Foundations of phonological awareness

• Nationwide study on emergent phonological
  awareness in 54 5-year-old preschool children
  with CP attending special education and 71
  normally developing peers
• Research questions
• To what extent do children with CP and normally
  developing children attain differential levels in
  rhyme ability and foundation measures?
• To what extent can the variation in rhyme ability
  of children with CP be explained from the
  childrens scores on the foundation measures?

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Method
Foundations of phonological awareness

• Children with CP (n 54)
• - 49 spastic type, 1 ataxic type and 4
  combinations of type of CP
• - 23 no speech difficulties, 20 children had
  dysarthria and 11 had anartria
• Tasks
• Nonverbal reasoning (Raven CPM)
• Pseudoword articulation
• Auditory perception
• Auditory short-term memory
• Vocabulary
• Rhyme Perception

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Results
Foundations of phonological awareness

• Comparison of children with CP and normally
  developing peers (z-scores)

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Results
Foundations of phonological awareness

• Foundations of rhyme perception
• Regression analysis for variables predicting
  rhyme perception in children with CP (ßs are
  shown)

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Results
Foundations of phonological awareness

• Below average IQ group (n 38) and a average IQ
  group (n 16) versus the control group (n 71)

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Conclusions
Foundations of phonological awareness

• Children with CP delay in emergent phonological
  awareness and foundation measures
• Nonverbal reasoning and pseudoword articulation
  main predictors of rhyme perception

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Implications
Foundations of phonological awareness

• Clinical implications
• Early intervention necessary for children with CP
  with lower intellectual levels and speech
  difficulties.
• Playing language games on computer (Segers
  Verhoeven, 2004)
• Need for adapted education software
• Future research
• How does phonological awareness develop in these
  children with CP????
• To what extent can differences between children
  with CP and normally developing children be
  explained by their school and home environment?