First Advisor

Donna Boudreau

Term of Graduation

Spring 2001

Date of Publication

6-12-2001

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.) in Speech Communication: Speech and Hearing Sciences

Department

Communication

Language

English

Subjects

Preschool children -- Language, Language disorders in children, Literacy, Language acquisition

Physical Description

1 online resource (v, 64 pages)

Abstract

It has been well documented that children with language impairments often go on to have difficulties in reading, with many of these children not being diagnosed until first or second grade. However, research demonstrates a predictive relationship between early literacy skills and later reading and writing success. Thus, assessment of early literacy is to utilize parental reports, which have been found to provide valuable information regarding children's communicative-linguistic development.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between parental reports of early literacy behaviors of their preschool children and the child's performance on informal and formal early literacy measures. An additional area of interest was to determine whether a difference exists between parents of typically developing children and parents of children with specific language impairments in predicting their child's early literacy skills.

Parents of children with specific language impairments and typically developing children were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding their children's early literacy skills. In addition, the children were individually tested on measures of phonological awareness, letter-name and letter-sound knowledge, conventions and functions of print, and narrative abilities.

Correlational analysis revealed a strong relationship between parental report and child performance on the expressive rhyme, letter-name, print concepts, and environmental print measures for the group with specific language impairment. For the typically developing group, a significant correlation was revealed between parental report and the children's performance on the expressive rhyming task only. These findings suggest a stronger relationship between parent report and children's performance for the group with language impairments as compared to the typically developing group. The use of a parent questionnaire in the manner utilized in this study may not be a valid indicator of performance for all children, However, a questionnaire, such as the one used in this study, may provide a starting point for a discussion about early literacy development between parents and educators.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Download

Share

COinS