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For typically developing children, reading is strongly related to phonological processing (PhP), with the strongest relation shown for phoneme deletion. We addressed three research questions regarding the PhP skills of 65 9-year-olds with Williams syndrome (WS): 1) Are there significant differences in PhP as a function of ability type? 2) Are there significant relations between reading and PhP? 3) Is the relative importance of deletion for reading also evidenced by children with WS? Children completed the DAS-II PhP subtest (Rhyming, Blending, Deletion, Phoneme Identification and Segmentation tasks) and WIAT-III Basic Reading composite. The modal pattern of PhP (evidenced by 40%) was an even profile. For the remaining children, blending was likely to be a relative strength and deletion a relative weakness. Word reading was significantly related to all PhP skills. Deletion ability was significantly more related to word reading ability than was blending ability. This pattern of relations for children with WS is similar to the pattern found for typically developing children, highlighting the importance of deletion skills for proficient word reading.
Funding: Williams Syndrome Association #0104, #0111; NICHD#R37-HD29957; NINDS#R01-NS35102. |
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