A Closer Look at Phonology as a Predictor of Spoken Sentence Processing and Word Reading

The goal of this study was to tease apart the roles of phonological awareness (pA) and phonological short-term memory (pSTM) in sentence comprehension, sentence production, and word reading. Children 6- to 10-years of age (N = 377) completed standardized tests of pA ('Elision') and pSTM ('Nonword Repetition') from the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. Concepts and Following Directions (CFD) and Formulated Sentences (FS) were taken from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition, as measures of sentence comprehension and production, respectively. Children also completed the Word Identification (Word Id) and Word Attack (Word Att) subtests of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Third Edition. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses controlling for age and nonverbal IQ revealed that Elision was the only significant predictor of CFD and FS. While Elision was the strongest predictor of Word Id and Word Att, Nonword Repetition accounted for additional variance in both reading measures. These results emphasize the usefulness of breaking down phonological processing into multiple components and they also have implications language and reading disordered populations.