Giannopoulou Sophia, Giannopoulou Ioanna, Efstathiou Vasiliki, Maidonis Apostolos, Tsourti Despoina, Koukoula Evangelia, Kolaitis Gerasimos
Department of Child Psychiatry, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, "Aghia Sophia" Children's Hospital, Athens, Greece.
Second Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Attikon University Hospital, Athens, Greece.
Psychiatriki. 2024 Jun 28;35(2):133-141. doi: 10.22365/jpsych.2022.089. Epub 2022 Aug 30.
The present study aimed to investigate the profile of reading and cognitive skills of primary school' students with a history of specific developmental language disorder during preschool years. The sample comprised 247 children referred for assessment of their reading difficulties to the University Child Psychiatry Department, at the "Aghia Sophia" Children's Hospital, Athens, Greece. The study was retrospective utilizing medical records from where the following information was drawn: demographic data, presence of a diagnosis of a specific developmental language disorder, results of Reading Test-A and WISC-III. Among the 247 children with normal intelligence IQ>80 (mean age: 10.5 years, 61.5% boys) included in the study, 226 (92.5%) were identified as having significant reading difficulties in at least one of the four subtests of the Reading-A Test (≤ 30 percentile); 72% performed poorly in reading fluency, 67.1% in decoding familiar and pseudowords, 52.8% in reading comprehension and 49.8% in morphosyntax subtest. When comparing children with severe reading difficulties (≤ 10 percentile on the Reading Test A) with a history of specific developmental language disorder (N=110) and no relevant history (N=116), the findings indicated that a significantly higher proportion of children with a history of specific language disorder had severe difficulty in morphosyntax (χ2=21.94, p<0.001) and reading comprehension subtests (χ2=8.89, p <0,001) than those with no history. In terms of the cognitive profile of children with severe reading difficulties, the results showed that a significantly higher proportion of children with a history of developmental language disorder than those with no history had low performance (<7TB) on all WISC-III subtests, however the difference between the two groups was found to be statistically significant on three subtests: "Vocabulary" (p=0.014), Arithmetic (p=0.006), and "Information" (p=0.005). Multiple linear stepwise regression analysis showed that lower levels of the verbal IQ (β=-0.121, p=0.042) and positive history of developmental language disorder during preschool years (β=0.537, p<0.001) were independently related to the severity of reading disability. In conclusion, the findings of the present study highlight the importance of early detection of language deficits during the preschool years and timely speech and language therapy intervention.
本研究旨在调查学前阶段有特定发育性语言障碍病史的小学生的阅读和认知技能情况。样本包括247名因阅读困难被转介至希腊雅典“阿吉亚·索菲亚”儿童医院大学儿童精神科进行评估的儿童。该研究采用回顾性研究方法，利用病历获取以下信息：人口统计学数据、特定发育性语言障碍的诊断情况、阅读测试-A和韦氏儿童智力量表第三版（WISC-III）的结果。在纳入研究的247名智力正常（智商>80，平均年龄：10.5岁，61.5%为男孩）的儿童中，226名（92.5%）在阅读测试-A的四个子测试中至少有一项被确定存在显著阅读困难（百分位≤30）；72%的儿童阅读流畅性差，67.1%的儿童在解码熟悉单词和假词方面表现不佳，52.8%的儿童阅读理解能力差，49.8%的儿童在词法句法子测试中表现不佳。将有特定发育性语言障碍病史（N = 110）和无相关病史（N = 116）的严重阅读困难儿童（阅读测试A百分位≤10）进行比较时，结果表明，有特定语言障碍病史的儿童在词法句法（χ2 = 21.94，p < 0.001）和阅读理解子测试（χ2 = 8.89，p < 0.001）中存在严重困难的比例显著高于无病史的儿童。就严重阅读困难儿童的认知情况而言，结果显示，有发育性语言障碍病史的儿童在韦氏儿童智力量表第三版所有子测试中的表现低于7分位的比例显著高于无病史的儿童，然而，两组之间在三个子测试上的差异具有统计学意义：“词汇”（p = 0.014）、“算术”（p = 0.006）和“知识”（p = 0.005）。多元线性逐步回归分析表明，较低的言语智商水平（β = -0.121，p = 0.042）和学前阶段发育性语言障碍的阳性病史（β = 0.537，p < 0.001）与阅读障碍的严重程度独立相关。总之，本研究结果凸显了学前阶段早期发现语言缺陷以及及时进行言语和语言治疗干预的重要性。
