| Sub-title | |
| Author | Karla Brincat |
| Abstract | Various studies support the existence of a strong association between deficits in phonological awareness and reading difficulties. However, the nature of this relationship remains open to debate. The aim of this study was to examine the nature of the association between phonological awareness skills and reading in Maltese-speaking children with reading disability. The phonological awareness abilities of five Maltese speaking 9-year-old readers with a reading age between 2 years 10 months and 3 years below their chronological age (CA match) were compared and contrasted with five 9-year-old normal readers and five children who had the same reading age as the poor readers (RA match). This study showed that the poor readers and the CA matched group differed significantly in the mean scores of phonological awareness. The poor readers achieved a total mean score of 56.9% whereas the CA match group achieved a total mean score of 90.8%. On the other hand the poor readers achieved a 1% higher mean score than the RA match group (56.9% versus 55.8% respectively). These results indicate a relationship between poor phonological awareness skills and reading ability. Further studies on a larger sample of the Maltese-speaking population are required to obtain more conclusive results. |
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| Journal | B.Sc. (Honours) Communication Therapy, University of Malta |
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| Pages | - |
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| Key words | phonology, reading skills, communication therapy, speech and language pathology |