Phonemic Awareness Assessment of Children With and Without Speech Sound Disorders: A Comparison Study

Abstract

High stakes testing and performance-based funding models increase the pressure to accurately identify reading problems in children as early as possible. Assessments used to measure reading-related skills, such as phonemic awareness (PA) have conventionally require verbal (oral) responses. Consequently, measures that require verbal (oral) responses may not accurately measure skills (e.g., oral reading fluency or word finding) in children who exhibit communication issues, specifically, children who do not speak clearly and fluently [1,2], such as children with speech sound disorders (SSD). Purpose: When assessing phonemic awareness (PA) ability, tasks that require verbal (oral) responses are often used. If verbal (oral) answers contain speech sound errors, it may be difficult for the evaluator to determine accuracy of PA skill. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between speech sound production and PA in first and second grade children with and without speech sound disorders (SSD) using a nonverbal (non-oral) response format.