Acquisition of Literacy skills in children with Specific Language Impairment: A Longitudinal Investigation in French

Abstract

This study examined the link between phonological development and literacy acquisition in the case of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). A sample of 20 beginning-readers French-speaking children with SLI participated in our longitudinal study. Their performances on phonological awareness were evaluated at three time points in time over 2 1/2 years, Time 1 (T1), Time 2(T2) and Time 3 (T3). Their oral language was evaluated at T2 and T3, while at T3 we also evaluated their literacy skills. According to our results at T3 non of the children showed any delay at phonological awareness, yet the literacy skills of the majority of them were significantly below average compared to normally developing children. At T3 our entire sample presented significant improvement in their utterances as well. We argue about the existence of a reciprocal influence between early language deficit and the later literacy development of children with SLI. Children with SLI improve significantly their oral language outcomes due to explicit instruction of written language; however their phonological representations seem to remain flawed and this reflects on literacy tasks that demand a high level of phoneme manipulation.