Speech Perception in Speech Sound Disorder and Reading Disability

Speech sound disorder (SSD) and reading disability (RD) are both associated with impaired phoneme awareness (PA). This study explores how four measures of speech perception, tapping both segmental and suprasegmental processing, are related to phoneme awareness within 10- and 11-year old children labeled as SSD-only (n = 17), RD-only (n = 16), SSD+RD (n = 17), and age-matched Control (n = 16). In accordance with a multi-factorial theory of the relationship between speech perception and phoneme awareness, children in all three clinical groups were impaired on multiple measures of speech perception. In addition, the SSD-only group currently did not reveal any PA deficit. Analyses exploring the SSD-only group revealed that these children have had strong vocabulary and processing speed since age 5, possibly assisting in the development of normal reading and eventual normal PA. In sum, results suggest that impairments in speech perception, both segmental and suprasegmental, may initially impact phonological re-presentations but that with strong protective factors reading may develop normally, allowing PA difficulties to be overcome.