Comparative Study of Speech and Language Characteristics of 6-8 year-old Turkish Children with Dyslexia and Children with Typical Development

Abstract

Purpose: Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental learning disability characterized by difficulties in word recognition, spelling, and decoding abilities which are often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Most individuals with dyslexia exhibit language difficulties. The aim of this study is to investigate speech and language profiles of children with dyslexia (CWD) among Turkish children with using standardized speech and language tests in Turkish. Method: Participants of this study consists of 29 children with dyslexia (13 boys, 16 girls) aged between 6.7-8.11 (M=96 months, SD= 9 months) and their age and gender matched peers with typical development (M=95 months, SD=8 months). For language assessment, TODİL, Turkish Articulation and Phonology Test and Turkish Nonword Repetition Tests were used. Results: There was a significant difference between the scores of two groups on Turkish Nonword Repetition Test (T-NRT) of two subtests Q-NRT and T-NRT (t (56) =5.98, p = 0.001). The difference between groups was significant on all SSI and TODIL except Word Discrimination subtest (U=337.00, p lt;.05). Children with typical development outperformed children with dyslexia. Conclusion: CWD had lower speech and language performance than their typically developing peers on all tasks. Assessing speech and language characteristics is crucial in diagnosis and intervention phases of dyslexia.

Keywords

• disleksi
• dil bozukluğu
• konuşma bozukluğu
• dil değerlendirmesi
• konuşma değerlendirmesi
• dyslexia
• language disorder
• speech disorder
• language assesssment
• speech assessment