By: Joy Stackhouse, Ph.D.
It is not the case that all children with a history of speech and language difficulties have associated literacy problems. However, school-age children whose speech difficulties persist beyond 5 years of age are most at risk for associated difficulties in reading, spelling and sometimes math.
Let us first consider the nature of persisting speech difficulties with reference to a simple psycho-linguistic model of speech processing.
This illustrates that we receive spoken information through the ear (input). The information is then processed as it goes up the left hand side of the model and is stored at the top in a word store (lexical representations). When we want to speak we can access stored information and programme it for speaking on the right hand side of the model (output). Some children with speech difficulties have difficulties with speech input (e.g.
The speech processing system, as illustrated above, is not only the basis for speech and
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