What is the relationship between phonological awareness abilities and literacy and speech-in- noise measures in school-aged children diagnosed with auditory processing disorder?

Abstract

Dyslexia is related to difficulties with phonological awareness skills. Therapy for improving phonological awareness is recommended for management of dyslexia, but also for auditory processing disorder (APD). Research has found a relationship between reading disorder and APD, but that relationship is not well understood. A theoretical proposition is that problems processing auditory signals are related to poor phonological awareness and to reading failure. This study outlines the collection and analysis of the phonological awareness skills of school-aged children diagnosed with APD. It further analyses whether there is a relationship between phonological awareness ability and literacy measures, and a speech-in-noise test. A mixed-methods study was designed to investigate 30 children diagnosed with APD (aged between 7 years 6 months and 10 years 1 month) in Auckland, New Zealand. Quantitative data were gathered from a standardised assessment of phonological awareness, tests of literacy abilities (reading fluency, single-word spelling and grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge) and a speech-in-noise test. Qualitative data were collected from a parent/caregiver's response asking if the child had a history of dyslexia. The children's mean composite score of phonological awareness ability was below average with distribution of percentiles across the lower ranks (range was 1 to 63). Reading fluency and parent/caregiver's report of dyslexia were the strongest predictors of underlying phonological awareness difficulties. There were statistically significant correlations between phonological awareness and single-word spelling and grapheme-phoneme correspondence. Phonological awareness did not correlate with the speech-in-noise measure. A recommendation from the findings is that a parent/caregiver report of dyslexia and a test of reading fluency will indicate the presence of underlying phonological awareness difficulties in school-aged children with APD.