We report on a prospective longitudinal research programme exploring the connection between language acquisition deficits and dyslexia. The language development profile of children at-risk for dyslexia is compared to that of age-matched controls as well as of children who have been diagnosed with specific language impairment (SLI). The experiments described concern the perception and production of grammatical morphology, categorical perception of speech sounds, phonological processing (non-word repetition), mispronunciation detection, and rhyme detection. The results of each of these indicate that the at-risk children as a group underperform in comparison to the controls, and that, in most cases, they approach the SLI group. It can be concluded that dyslexia most likely has precursors in language development, also in domains other than those traditionally considered conditional for the acquisition of literacy skills. The dyslexia-SLI connection awaits further, particularly qualitative, analyses.

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This study explored receptive vocabulary size and early literacy skills (namely: letter naming, knowledge of phoneme-grapheme correspondences and early writing) in emergent bilingual Northern Sotho-English children. Two groups of Grade 1 learners were tested in both English and in Northern Sotho. Group 1 (N = 49) received their formal schooling in English, whilst group 2 (N = 50) received their formal schooling in Northern Sotho. Receptive vocabulary was tested using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Letter knowledge was assessed by asking learners to name letter cards, whilst knowledge of phoneme-grapheme correspondences was tested by asking children to match letter cards with spoken sounds. Early writing was assessed by asking children to write their names. Statistical analyses indicated that both English and Northern Sotho receptive vocabulary knowledge had a significant effect on early literacy skills, whilst no main effect was found for the language of instruction. Group 1 performed significantly better than Group 2 in English receptive vocabulary, in knowledge of phonemegrapheme correspondences and in early writing, but no group differences were found for Northern Sotho receptive vocabulary or for letter knowledge. English receptive vocabulary significantly predicted the outcome of all of the early literacy skills, whilst Northern Sotho receptive vocabulary significantly predicted phoneme-grapheme correspondences and early writing.

Gender differences in reading development are a global phenomenon, with girls typically performing better than boys. Some studies have reported gender differences favouring girls in reading comprehension in South Africa, but little systematic evidence exists about gender differences in the cognitive-linguistic abilities that underlie reading development. This study investigated the effect of gender on phonological processing and reading development in Northern Sotho–English bilingual children. Grade 3 learners who received their literacy instruction in English were tested on various phonological processing and reading measures. Phonological awareness was assessed using phoneme isolation and elision tasks. Phonological working memory was assessed using memory for digits and non-word repetition tests while rapid automatised naming was tested using rapid letter, rapid digit, rapid object and rapid colour naming tasks. Reading achievement was assessed with various word reading tasks and with a fluent reading task. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed that gender had a significant effect on the phonological processing and reading abilities of Northern Sotho– English bilingual children. Girls performed significantly better than boys on all the reading measures, as well as on some aspects of phonological processing. The findings provide behavioural evidence in support of biological theories of gender differences, in that girls seemed to have developed some of the cognitive-linguistic skills associated with reading before boys. The girls also coped better with tasks that required increased cognitive processing. This study suggests that sex differences in reading development cannot be ignored in South Africa and need to be addressed in future curriculum development.