Speech Production/Phonological Deficits in Reading-Disordered Children

Speech production/articulation was examined in reading-disordered and normal children. Subjects participated in three tasks involving the production of multisyllabic words and phonologically complex phrases. Results demonstrated that the reading-disordered children made significantly more speech production errors than normal children in each of the tasks. Furthermore, the reading-disordered children's performance on the speech production tasks was correlated with their reading ability. It is concluded that the speech production difficulties of the reading-disordered children are a reflection of their various deficits in phonological processing.