Phonological Awareness and Nonword Repetition in Children With and Without Speech Sound Disorders: A Comparative Analysis.

International journal of language & communication disorders · 2026 · Other · SLP
Özlem Icoz, Esra Özcebe

Children with speech sound disorders scored lower than typically developing peers on phonological awareness and nonword repetition, even after accounting for language ability. Their speech difficulties appear to extend beyond motor production into how they process and hold sounds in memory.

Key findings

1

The SSD group scored significantly lower than the control group on every phonological awareness subtest and on both nonword repetition measures (correctly repeated words and correctly produced phonemes).

2

These group differences remained statistically significant after adjusting for expressive language scores.

3

Word awareness correlated with nonword repetition in the SSD group (r = 0.541); total phonological awareness (r = 0.524) and rhyme awareness (r = 0.688) correlated with nonword repetition in the control group.

MethodologyResultsClinical Relevance

Single-blind randomized controlled trial. Sixty-four participants were randomized across two intervention arms and assessed at twelve weeks for the primary outcome…

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