title: The role of phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge in the reading development of children with intellectual disabilities.
abstract: Our study investigated if phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge were predictors of reading progress in children with intellectual disabilities (ID) with unspecified etiology. An academic achievement test was administered to 129 children with mild or moderate ID when they were 6-8 years old, as well as one and two school years later. Findings indicated that phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge at 6-8 years of age predicted progress in word and non-word reading after one school year and two school years after controlling for IQ, age, expressive vocabulary, spoken language, and type of placement. Phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge at 6-8 years of age also predicted progress in reading comprehension after one school year and two school years. These findings suggest that training phonological awareness skills combined with explicit phonics instruction is important to foster reading progress in children with mild and moderate ID with unspecified etiology.
authors.affiliation: University of Teacher Education from State of Vaud, Special Needs Education Unit, Av. de Cour 33, Lausanne, 1014, Switzerland. Electronic address: rachel.sermier@hepl.ch.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sermier Dessemontet
authors.affiliation: University of Teacher Education from State of Vaud, Special Needs Education Unit, Av. de Cour 33, Lausanne, 1014, Switzerland. Electronic address: anne-francoise.de-chambrier@hepl.ch.
authors.forename: Anne-Françoise
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: de Chambrier
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011932:Reading
keywords: Intellectual disability; Letter knowledge; Longitudinal; Phonological awareness; Predictors; Reading