The phonological skills assessment and correlations with dyslexia

Abstract

Phonological skills encompass phonological awareness, phonologicalshort-term memory and rapid naming. These are perhaps the most frequently analysed phonological processes related to reading and (or) writing in the scientific literature. The research purpose is to reveal the theoretical characteristics of assessment of phonological skills and their correlation with specific learning disorder / dyslexia1 at the national and international levels. The authors hold the opinion that this topic will be relefant for the development of knowledge on phonological skills for both, researchers and practitioners. The analysis of scientific papers by Lithuanian and foreign authors based on the theoretical analysis of the concept (Bitinas, Rupšienė & Žydžiūnaitė, 2008) has been carried out. The analysis was conducted in compliance with the following sequence: 1) the object of analysis (phonological skills (PS)) was set; 2) structural components of the concept (phonological awareness (PA), phonological memory (PM), rapid automatized naming (RAN)) were pointed out; 3) characteristics that define the said components, their correlations with dyslexia as well as assessment features were identified. Results/conclusions. Acording scientific research data, assessment of PS includes: the assessment of PA, encompassing all four levels of skills (word, syllable, rhyme, phoneme); the assessment of PM, when repeating queues of numbers, words and nonwords; the assessment of RAN, when naming visual stimuli (colours, objects, numbers, letters, etc.) as rapidly and precisely as possible. Extensive research conducted in various foreign languages allowed demonstrating obvious correlations between PS and dyslexia. It was found out that individuals with dyslexia had insufficient skills in this field. Nevertheless, results of the surveyed long-term investigations demonstrate that two indicators predict reading attainments in pre-school and pre-primary age best: PA and RAN.