Language Skills, but Not Frequency Discrimination, Predict Reading Skills in Children at Risk of Dyslexia.

ABSTRACT: This study evaluated the claim that auditory processing deficits are a cause of reading and language difficulties. We report a longitudinal study of 245 children at family risk of dyslexia, children with preschool language impairments, and control children. Children with language impairments had poorer frequency-discrimination thresholds than controls at 5.5 years, but children at family risk of dyslexia did not. A model assessing longitudinal relationships among frequency discrimination, reading, language, and executive function skills showed that frequency discrimination was predicted by executive skills but was not a longitudinal predictor of reading or language skills. Our findings contradict the hypothesis that frequency discrimination is causally related to dyslexia or language impai

SUBMITTER: Snowling MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6088504 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature