Performance in decoding and writing of children with Developmental Language Disorder: preliminary data.
Aparecido José Couto Soares, Gabriele Hilário Cardoso Santos, Débora Maria Befi-Lopes
PMID 37878958WHAT IT FOUND
Children with developmental language disorder decoded words and non-words much more slowly and made more errors than matched peers.
Their dictation showed many spelling errors, especially natural spelling errors.
Key findings
01Children with DLD took longer to decode words and non-words and answered fewer correctly than the control group.
02Among children with DLD at the alphabetic writing level, 76.58% of errors were natural spelling and 35.13% were arbitrary spelling, with wide variability.
03Word length increased decoding time in both groups, with a greater effect in children with DLD.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The DLD group had only 16 children, and the study is described as preliminary. The control group was assessed only for decoding, not writing, so the spelling error pattern cannot be compared with typical peers. The study was retrospective and cross-sectional, so it did not follow children over time. Phonological processing was discussed as a possible explanation but was not the object of the study.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that a specific treatment improves decoding or writing, because the study only compared performance between groups and did not test an intervention.