Marshall, Chloe; Harcourt-Brown, Sally; Ramus, Franck; van der Lely, Heather; (2009) The link between prosody and language skills in children with SLI and/or dyslexia. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders , 44

Text (Marshall, Harcourt-Brown, Ramus & van der Lely, 2009) Marshall_Harcourt_Brown_Ramus_van_der_Lely_2009_IJLCD.pdf - Published Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff Download (322kB) | Request a copy

Abstract

Background: Children with SLI and dyslexia are known to have impairments in various aspects of phonology, which have been claimed to cause their language and literacy impairments. However, ‘phonology’ encompasses a wide range of skills, and little is known about whether these phonological impairments extend to prosody. Aims: The aims of this study were to investigate prosodic abilities of children with SLI and/or dyslexia, to determine whether such children have prosodic impairments, whether they have the same pattern of impairments, and whether prosodic impairments are related to language and literacy deficits. Methods and Procedures: We used six subtests within the Profiling Elements of Prosodic Systems - Child version (PEPS-C) to investigate comprehension and production of prosodic forms that were either independent of language or that had one of two linguistic functions: chunking (prosodic boundaries) and focus (contrastive stress). We compared the performance of three groups of 10-14 year-old children with SLI+dyslexia, SLI-only and dyslexia-only to the performance of an age-matched control group and two younger control groups matched for various aspects of language and reading. Outcomes and results: Prosody itself, independent of linguistic function, was unimpaired in the vast majority of children with SLI and dyslexia. Linguistic structures that rely on prosody for comprehension and expression were impaired in some children. However, we found no, or only very weak, links between prosody and language and literacy skills in children with SLI and dyslexia. Conclusions: Although some children with SLI and dyslexia do have difficulties comprehending and producing linguistic structures where prosody is key to meaning, prosody is a relative strength in their language abilities.

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