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Phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), letter knowledge, and oral language are all significant predictors of successful literacy acquisition in several languages. However, their relative importance is less clear and depends on language characteristics, the specific aspect of literacy assessed, and the phase of literacy acquisition. This study, therefore, aimed to examine the development of these predictors and their relationship with literacy acquisition through a longitudinal investigation of German-speaking children. Seventy-eight children growing up monolingual German were assessed three times: a few months before starting school (mean age = 5 years 11 months), in grade 1 (mean age = 6 years 11 months), and in grade 2 (mean age = 7 years 10 months). Cognitive predictors were measured at preschool, and literacy outcomes (reading accuracy, speed, comprehension, and spelling) were measured in grades 1 and 2. Correlational and path analyses revealed a complex pattern of relationships between cognitive and literacy skills dependent on the aspect of literacy being measured and the timepoint. Overall, the most important predictor of literacy skill in grade 2 was earlier literacy skills, followed by letter knowledge and RAN. Phonological awareness was less important than RAN, and oral language skills (i.e., vocabulary, grammar comprehension) were least important. The implications of these findings for the understanding of cognitive mechanisms of literacy acquisition and for early detection of literacy difficulties are discussed.

The development of phonological awareness (PA), the ability to reflect on the sound structure of words independent of their meaning, has been extensively explored in English-speaking children. However, this is not the case for other languages. The aim of this study was to develop a comprehensive PA test battery for German-speaking preschool children, considering psycholinguistic, linguistic, and cognitive aspects and to carry out analyses of its psychometric properties. Cross-sectional data from a sample of 55 children (CA 4;0-6;11 years) were collected. Preliminary findings confirm validity and reliability of the test battery, and support previous findings that PA develops from larger to smaller linguistic units. Phoneme-level tasks were consistently associated with letter knowledge. The new instrument is a promising tool for basic research (e.g. cross-linguistic comparisons of PA development) as well as for clinical and educational practice (e.g. planning speech and language therapy or literacy-oriented intervention). (Contains 4 notes, 9 tables and 5 figures.)

Normative data on phonological acquisition of a language are a prerequisite for evaluating children's speech sound competences. To date, these data are not sufficiently available for Italian. This study, therefore, aimed to describe the phonological development of 183 typically developing monolingual Italian-speaking children aged 3;0–4;11 (four 6-months age bands). Participants were assessed through a picture naming task, and performances analysed in terms of number of phonological variations (Tokens), Types and percentage of occurrence of patterns, and number of infrequent variants (InfrVar) as a measure of stability in speech production. Two cut-off criteria to distinguish InfrVar from phonological patterns were applied. Results showed a gradual reduction of all measures with increasing age. Twenty-two patterns generally in line with previous Italian and cross-linguistic studies were observed, with only five patterns and two phonetic distortions occurring across all age groups. Eight patterns only emerged when applying the lower cut-off criterion, while further seven patterns only occurred with very low frequency or in isolated age groups. These findings highlight the influence of the selected cut-off criterion on the identification of patterns and raise the question of whether some patterns should rather be considered InfVar. Data on younger children are still needed to clarify whether low-frequency patterns are patterns of younger typically developing children that have almost resolved in the age groups assessed. At least half of the phonological variation Tokens fell into the category of InfrVar, indicating a need to pay more attention to this so far ignored measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prelexical phonetic capacities have widely been described to be a precursor for later speech and language development. However, studies so far varied greatly in the measurements used for the detection of canonical babbling onset or the description of infants' phonetic capacities at one or more set time points. The comparability of results is, therefore, questionable. Thus, the aims of this study were to investigate the associations between (1) different measurements of CBO, (2) different aspects of phonetic capacity at the age of 9 months and (3) age of CBO and phonetic capacities at 9 months. A further aim (4) was to explore whether one of the measures would be suitable to predict the age of word onset (WO) in 20 healthy German-acquiring individuals. The data were derived from monthly recorded spontaneous speech samples between 0 and 18 months. It was found that the different applied prelexical measures equally well serve as valid estimators for the detection of CBO or of infants' phonetic capacities. Further, age of CBO and phonetic capacities at 9 months were significantly associated even though the age of CBO did not reliably predict phonetic capacities. Prelexical measures and WO were not related. Reasons for no indication of a significant association are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International research findings have repeatedly confirmed the significance of speech and language processing skills and letter knowledge for successful literacy acquisition. However, the importance of these skills for early literacy success in German speakers remains uncertain. The present longitudinal study aimed to explore this issue. Sixty-nine German-speaking children were assessed in nursery a few months before starting school (mean age 5;11) and in Grade 1 (mean age 6;11) with tests of phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, expressive vocabulary, grammar comprehension, letter knowledge, and nonverbal reasoning. Grade 1 assessments also included measures of reading accuracy, speed, comprehension, and spelling. The results confirmed that speech and language processing skills and letter knowledge before and around the time of school enrolment explain individual differences in early literacy development, with letter knowledge and phonological awareness emerging as most important predictors. No variance in literacy performance was uniquely predicted by nonverbal reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Approximately 9.9 % of children present with difficulties in language development (DLD), 7.6 % without serious additional impairments and 2.3 % associated with languagerelevant comorbidities, e.g., hearing loss. Notably, in a consensus statement by experts in German-speaking countries, in the guideline presented here, and further in this article, all of these disorders are referred to as "developmental language disorders" (DLD), whereas the international consortium CATALISE only refers to those without comorbidities as DLD. DLDs are among the most commonly treated childhood disorders and, if persistent, often reduce educational and socio-economic outcome. Children in their third year of life with developmental language delay (late talkers, LT) are at risk of a later DLD., Methods: This German interdisciplinary clinical practice guideline reflects current knowledge regarding evidence-based interventions for developmental language delay and disorders. A systematic literature review was conducted on the effectiveness of interventions for DLD., Results: The guideline recommends parent training (Hedges g = 0.38 to 0.82) for LTs with expressive language delay, language therapy (Cohen's d = -0.20 to 0.90) for LTs with additional receptive language delay or further DLD risk factors, phonological or integrated phonological treatment methods (Cohen's d = 0.89 to 1.04) for phonological speech sound disorders (SSDs), a motor approach for isolated phonetic SSDs (non-DLD), and for lexical-semantic and morpho-syntactic impairments combinations of implicit and explicit intervention approaches (including input enrichment, modeling techniques, elicitation methods, creation of production opportunities, metalinguistic- approaches, visualizations; Cohen's d = 0.89-1.04). Recom mendations were also made for DLD associated with pragmatic-communicative impairment, bi-/ multilingualism, hearing loss, intellectual disability, autism-spectrum disorders, selective mutism, language- relevant syndromes or multiple disabilities, and for intensive inpatient language rehabilitation., Conclusion: Early parent- and child-centered speech and language intervention implementing evidence-based intervention approaches, frequency, and settings, combined with educational language support, can improve the effectiveness of management of developmental language delay and disorders.