The assessment of reading readiness using multidimensionally scored time-compressed speech

Normal-hearing children (39 M, 36 F) from a monolingual environment, aged 5 yrs 10 mo to 7 yrs 2 mo, of average or better intelligence, were selected as being at high, average, or low risk of reading readiness according to scores on the Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization (LAC) test. Ss were also given the Stephens Oral Language Screening Test (SOLST), emphasizing syntactical development. Ss were then tested for verbal respeating of taped 5-word sentences and 5-word 1st-order sentential approximations at 32 db SL re SRT. Stimuli were presented at 0, 40, or 60% time compression (TC). Responses were scored right/wrong and also by Porch's multidimensional system involving repeats and cues. For both systems significant effects were obtained between a number of TC conditions vs both the LAC and SOLST. The LAC appeared to emphasize phonetic units, the SOLST linguistic units in real sentences. The TC condition appeared to emphasize linguistic units at both word and sentence levels, less so with increasing TC. Results supported the usefulness of the TC stimuli in assessing reading readiness and it was suggested that the various stimuli assess different aspects of auditory processing.