Comparative Assessment of Speech Perception, Phonological Information Processing, and Syntactic Skills in Normal and Dyslexic Children of Second and Third Grade

Many studies have claimed that speech perception in dyslexic children is impaired in comparison to normal children in a way that dyslexic children are weaker in the discrimination and identification of phonemes. In this research, we study speech perception, syntactic skills, and phonological processing in the normal and dyslexic Farsi-speaking children.
We examined the speech perception in 30 normal and 18 dyslexic children, using speech identification task in 3 continua of voice onset time (VOT) in [ba-pa], [da-ta], and [ga-ka]. We also studied 2 other skills to examine the processing of phonological information and syntactic skills. We used the nonword repetition test and passive sentence comprehension, respectively. To compare the data, the Mann-Whitney U test, t-test, and logistic regression were used.
Dyslexic children in speech identification task performed similarly to normal children in all 3 continua (P=0.81, 0.87, and 0.58); but, in the nonword repetition test, they were significantly lower than normal children (P=0.01), and in the passive sentence comprehension task, there was no significant difference between normal and dyslexic children (P=0.12).
The results of various studies for speech perception and linguistic abilities in dyslexic children are contradictory. They are mostly related to the tasks that have been used. Therefore, more studies in the future are suggested.