The Relationship between Nonword Repetition and Speech Perception and Phonological Memory in Children with Speech Sound Disorders

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to examine nonword repetition (NWR) performance of children with speech sound disorders (SSD) compared with children with typical development (TD) and investigate the relationship between NWR and speech perception, phonological short-term and phonological working memory, and percentage of consonants correct (PCC). Methods: Participants included 8 children with Pure SSD, 7 children with SSD accompanied by language disorders (LD) and 9 children with TD aged 5 to 6 years. Children completed NWR tasks, speech perception tests focusing on initial and final consonants in one-syllable words, and immediate memory tasks examining forward and reverse recall of familiar words. NWR performances were examined according to the entire, retrieval and sequencing accuracies and analyzed by 9 error types. Results: Children with SSD and LD performed significantly lower total and retrieval accuracies of NWR than children with TD. Substitution errors of articulation place were most frequent in all groups. Only children with SSD exhibited syllable structure errors. No significant group differences existed in speech perception. Children with SSD and LD showed lower phonological short-term memory than children with TD. Both children with SSD and LD and with Pure SSD performed significantly lower phonological working memory than children with TD. NWR showed significant relationship with speech perception, phonological memory, and PCC. The relationships between NWR and phonological short-term memory and PCC were striking. Conclusion: This study underlines that children with SSD and LD show remarkable difficulties in NWR and supports the close relationship of NWR with phonological short-term memory and speech accuracy.