title: Early language development in children with a genetic risk of dyslexia.
abstract: We report on a prospective longitudinal research programme exploring the connection between language acquisition deficits and dyslexia. The language development profile of children at-risk for dyslexia is compared to that of age-matched controls as well as of children who have been diagnosed with specific language impairment (SLI). The experiments described concern the perception and production of grammatical morphology, categorical perception of speech sounds, phonological processing (non-word repetition), mispronunciation detection, and rhyme detection. The results of each of these indicate that the at-risk children as a group underperform in comparison to the controls, and that, in most cases, they approach the SLI group. It can be concluded that dyslexia most likely has precursors in language development, also in domains other than those traditionally considered conditional for the acquisition of literacy skills. The dyslexia-SLI connection awaits further, particularly qualitative, analyses.
authors.affiliation: Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, Utrecht University, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: van Alphen
authors.forename: Elise
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: de Bree
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gerrits
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: de Jong
authors.forename: Carien
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wilsenach
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wijnen
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D012307:Risk Factors