Barbara May Bernhardt|Éva Major
Speech, language and literacy skills 3 years later: a follow?up study of early phonological and metaphonological intervention
background three years present study 19 preschool children participated phonological metaphonological intervention programme phonological intervention programme based nonlinear phonological analyses metaphonological intervention programme included rhyming alliteration tasks directly targeted last section programme children made significant gains phonology many metaphonology however literature notes tendency children history early speech language impairments difficulty acquiring literacy skills show residual speech impairment participants 1998 study therefore considered risk continuing speech impairment andor academic performance aims primary objectives document childrens later speech language literacy skills determine potential relationships previous concurrent child factors methods procedures twelve children original cohort aged 6185 received comprehensive battery speech language cognitive academic tasks 3 years original study data evaluated concurrently terms childrens preschool performance outcomes results five children residual phonological impairment two children showed average reading decoding comprehension although five also showed average spelling performance children limitations verbal memory language production metaphonology followup point likely show delays literacy language production skills followup point strongly correlated literacy development terms early study strongest predictor literacy development performance metaphonology tasks end early intervention study strongest predictor ongoing speech impairment phonological skill end early study conclusions results suggest early phonological metaphonological intervention promote normalization speech development normal acquisition literacy skills least children history severe phonological impairment earlier study component structure words onsets rhymes codas emphasized metaphonological nonlinear phonological intervention risk literacy ongoing speech impairment reduced early intervention draws attention structure words