Trade-off effects among linguistic components were compared in 30 elementary school children with deficits in both oral and written language, deficits only in written language, or normal language development. Analysis of syntax, phonology, and fluency indicated group effects, with trade-offs between some linguistic measures and positive…

The syntactic development of preschoolers (n=22) who later became disabled readers was compared to that of similar children who became normal readers. Expressive and receptive syntactic abilities were examined from age 30 to 60 months. The dyslexic group was poorer on all measures until age five, when both groups exhibited similar syntactic…

In this commentary on Linda Siegel's paper (EC221505), it is argued that a minimum level of general ability is needed for successful reading performance. Above this threshold other kinds of intelligence are required and more important is the contribution of verbal efficiency, which is predicated on the covariance of phonology, morphology, and…

A study found that both paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects of text were important for signifying meaning of text in the reading comprehension of 102 Australian students at 3 age levels (10, 12, and 14 years). Underlying comprehension problems was a lack of prior experience of text topics. Reading preparation through developing shared meanings is…

Linguistic profiles of 7 dyslexic, 7 mildly dyslexic, 30 average, 16 good readers were examined at kindergarten, grade 2, and grade 4. Groups did not differ in language comprehension but did differ in confrontation and rapid automatized naming, three syntactic measures, and verbal memory. Kindergarten ability at giving letter sounds and rapid…

Review of the contribution of various oral language abilities to early reading performances found that, although phonemic awareness was the best predictor of early reading skills, metasyntactic ability also often accounted for significant variance. Once children acquire initial decoding skills, narrative discourse and other metalinguistic skills…

This study compared (1) performance on language skills and phonological process measures by 41 kindergarten children with speech/language impairments, and (2) their reading ability in first grade. Children with semantic-syntactic language deficits exhibited more difficulties in reading than did children with articulation impairments. Phonological…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The six titles deal with the following topics: (1) the role of adversative connectives in helping good and poor readers to integrate textual information; (2) trends in written products of general writing, basic writing, and basic…