Dynamic assessment of phonological awareness for children with speech sound disorders

Abstract

The current study was designed to examine the relationships between performance on a nonverbal phoneme deletion task administered in a dynamic assessment format with performance on measures of phoneme deletion, word-level reading, and speech sound production that required verbal responses for school-age children with speech sound disorders (SSDs). The study adds to existing literature by administering the nonverbal task to children with SSDs, and by incorporating the use of an error-specific prompting system in a dynamic assessment format to inform instructional decisions. Ten school-age children with various degrees of speech sound disorders participated in the study. Speech production, phonological awareness, and word-level reading skills were examined. Performance on measures of verbal and nonverbal phoneme deletion were significantly correlated; however, the measure of nonverbal phoneme deletion was not related to performance on measures of speech sound production. Both measures were related to word-level reading.