Group performance differences in reading, math, and science by fourth graders with and without communication disorders.
Courtney Karasinski
PMID 42561302WHAT IT FOUND
Fourth graders receiving speech-language therapy scored lower than peers without therapy on reading, math, and science.
Science was the weakest subject for all groups. SLPs should expect cross-subject academic difficulties and consider referring underperforming students for language screening.
Key findings
01Fourth graders receiving speech-language therapy scored lower than peers without therapy on reading, math, and science.
02Income was a consistent factor: upper-income children outperformed middle- and lower-income children, and middle-income children outperformed lower-income children, across all three subjects.
03Gender effects depended on the subject: females outperformed males in reading, but males outperformed females in math and science, with one exception in middle-income math where no gender difference was found.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The ComDis group is defined by receiving speech-language therapy rather than by a standardized language assessment, so the authors acknowledge they could not confirm the presence of a communication disorder in those 265 children or rule it out in the 7681 GenEd children. No additional speech or oral-language ability data were available in the dataset, so the specific language profile of the ComDis group is unknown. The design is cross-sectional (a single fourth-grade time point), so it cannot show whether the gap widens, narrows, or is caused by the communication disorder. Excluding children who received other special education services may have removed some children with co-occurring communication disorders, potentially underestimating the true prevalence of academic difficulty in the ComDis group. The ComDis group (265 children) is a small fraction of the total sample (7946), and some subgroups are very small (e.g., 23 ComDis females in the low-income band), limiting the reliability of subgroup comparisons.
Declared interests
The authors declared no financial support and no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the lower scores of the 265 children receiving speech-language therapy as proof that SLP services cause academic difficulty. The study is cross-sectional, the group is defined by receiving services rather than by a standardized language assessment, and the ComDis group is a small fraction of the 7946 children analysed, so the direction of causation cannot be established.