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A phonological impairment is a disturbance in children's speech sound production that occurs independently of physical or cognitive impairment. Phonological impairment may arise from inadequate mental representations of speech sounds and/or difficulty accessing representations. Affected children may struggle to acquire phonological awareness and/or experience persistent academic deficits. Questions remain as to identifying the factors that lead to risk for reading and spelling difficulties in this population. Prior research confirmed that in the general population a concurrent, additive ‘double-deficit’ underlies reading disability—(1) undeveloped phonological awareness and (2) deficient rapid naming of visual symbols. The present study found that deficits in phonological awareness and rapid naming converged in 23 children with phonological impairment and a significant percentage of variance in reading and spelling performance was accounted for by the aggregated factor of phonological awareness and rapid naming performance. A ‘double deficit’ coexisted in this sample of children with phonological impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mandated testing is prominent among educational initiatives. Questions arise about testing students who face economic disadvantages, are of racial, ethnic, or language minority status, or are at risk for academic failure because their schools provide limited opportunities for academic advancement. This study used normed tests to measure oral and written language and reading abilities in 263 grade four and six African American students and compared results to performance on criterion-referenced mandated testing of reading and writing. For normed and mandated tests, group mean scores were at times below expectations. Principal components analyses determined language capabilities underlying performance on testing. Factors that accounted for the variance in scores included vocabulary, knowledge of the conventions of written language, knowledge of sentence syntax, and reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]