Narrative performance and working memory performance in Saudi children with speech sound disorder.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the narrative skills and working memory performance of children with speech sound disorder (SSD) and their typically developing peers. The participant group of the study consisted of a total of 60 children (30 children with SSD - 30 typically developing peers). For this purpose, a comparative descriptive research model was used. The independent samples T-test was used to compare the groups in terms of scale scores. Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between the Narrative Skills scores and the Working Memory (WM) scale scores of the participants. According to the analysis results, there is a statistically significant difference between the working memory scores and narrative performance scores of the two groups. In this study, verbal short-term memory, verbal working memory, visual short-term memory, and visual working memory scores did not differ according to gender among participants with short-term memory disorder (p > 0.05), however, there was a statistically significant difference in the total working memory score according to gender. The total WM score of the female group was higher than that of the male group. Narrative performance of participants with SSD did not differ according to gender.