A pilot study exploring reading and spelling difficulties in children with auditory processing disorder

This pilot study examined the underexplored reading and spelling skills of children with auditory processing disorder (APD). Based on previous research linking auditory and phonological deficits, it was hypothesized that children with APD experiencing literacy difficulties would exhibit a phonological vulnerability profile of dyslexia-dysorthographia (DD), characterized by phonological awareness impairments. Nineteen school-aged children with APD, seen in rehabilitation centers specialized in communication, were assessed with a test battery measuring auditory, reading, and spelling skills as well as cognitive vulnerability factors (e.g., phonological awareness, lexical orthographic memory). Among these participants, four performed within normal limits on the reading and spelling tasks or did not exhibit difficulties related to a DD. The other fifteen participants exhibited difficulties similar to those of children with DD, with thirteen showing results associated with a mnesic vulnerability profile, characterized by lexical orthographic memory deficits, and two showing a mixed profile, combining phonological and mnesic vulnerabilities. Findings of this pilot study highlighted a high rate of reading and spelling difficulties among these children. Their difficulties were not comparable to those seen in children with the phonological vulnerability profile, but with a mnesic profile, suggesting that auditory processing difficulties do not always lead to this profile of DD. These preliminary findings need to be extended to larger samples from various clinical settings to clarify interactions between auditory processing, cognitive vulnerability factors, and written language skills.