الفهرس 
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESSOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 171 |  |  |
| | | from | 171 | | |
Abstract
P
honological awareness (PA) refers to the explicit awareness of the abstract units that compose spoken words, including syllables, onset and rime units, and individual phonemes. Phonological awareness is a critical precursor to the acquisition of reading (Stanovich, 2000). Also, it is the ability to reflect on and manipulate the constituent segments of spoken words. It is a multi-dimensional construct which consists in the ability to identify, delete, isolate, blend or count syllables, onsets, rimes or phonemes (Stackhouse and Wells 1997).
Reading is the process by which one constructs meaning from printed symbols. It is a language-based activity; and so deficits in oral language will be reflected by deficits in written language (Supple, 1998). There is well-established relationship between early phonological awareness abilities and later reading abilities of children with normal development.
The reading abilities in children with language disorders are known to be affected. Among these disordered children are those diagnosed with specific language impairment (SLI), attention deficit hyperactive disorders (ADHD), and hearing impairment. The pathophysiology of affection of reading troubles may differ and the causes may be multifactorial.
Our aim was to evaluate the phonological abilities skills in children with (SLI), (ADHD), and hearing impaired (CI) users, in order to evaluate the need intervention in this area. Thus, PA skills were assessed using selected items of the Arabic phonological awareness test (El-sady et al., 2011); namely blending syllables into words (BSW), blending phonemes into words (BPW) and isolating initial sound (IIP). Ninety children with an age range of 5 to 8 years divided into 3 groups: 30 SLI, 30 ADHD, and 30 CI. Each group subdivided into 3 subgroups according to their age. Thirty normally developed children served as a 4th control group.
ANOVA revealed no significant difference between the four groups for the items of BSW and BPW, but there was a significant difference between the four groups for the IIP scores which was further analyzed by post hoc test which found the significance lies between control and both of SLI and CI groups. ADHD children did not have any PA problems in comparison to normal children.
Collectively speaking, our results point to PA scores that are comparable to normally developing children in ADHD and nearly so in SLI and CI children. The fact that IIP was deviant than normal in SLI and CI children can be explained by being the most difficult task requiring a high level of phonemic perception and phonological memory that may be defective (at least developmentally) in these disorders. Also it may be attributed to a less mature central auditory processing which may eventually subside by further training during their language and auditory discrimination therapy.
The more advanced isolation tasks should be addressed during training of children with SLI and hearing-impaired children in order to avoid literacy skills problems that may arise during early academic exposure. This may be done by incorporating phoneme-grapheme skills during language session to raise brain attention for isolation tasks enhancing it with an extra visual stimulation. Intervention programs aiming at preventing reading disorders should not necessarily target PA skills, but should be tailored according to enhance potentially weak areas in each disorder and in each child. Further follow up of children is recommended in order to evaluate the progress of their reading abilities with time.