Erin White-Canales^1,, Adrienne McElroy-Bratcher¹

The importance of identifying the relationship and independent variables of speech sound disorders and their effect on literacy, could have clinical benefits and improving speech and language intervention. In recent studies, researchers have found that deficits in phonological processes could be an indicator for predicting reading outcomes for children with speech sound disorders. It has been theorized that children who exhibit articulatory errors are the result of the inadequacy of the speech perceptual acoustic characteristics of speech phoneme errors. Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine the impact, if any, speech sound disorders have on school-age children and literacy and to determine if a relationship exists between children identified with a speech sound disorder and literacy achievement. Methods: A causal- comparative model was employed to investigate what possible effects speech sound disorders of school-age children have on reading achievement, and how it compares to children who are speech and language impaired and the norm group of students. Subjects for the study were collected using a stratified random sampling process from a local school district. Students were randomly chosen from each grade level (Kindergarten through 3^rd grade) and then randomly selected again from each subgroup studied: 1) students identified as speech and language impairment, articulation (SLI-A), 2) students identified as speech and language impairment, language and articulation (SLI-L&A or DD), and 3) students who do not have an individual education plan (I.E.P.). Results: In summary, statistics showed that when comparing the norm group to the SLI-A group, results indicated that there were some significant differences found when comparing the categorical groups at each grade level though effect sizes were small; however, in comparisons using the overall scores there were not any significant differences noted. In comparisons made between the norm group and SLI L&A comorbid group, results indicated that there are significant differences found in all statistical analysis completed. In comparing the SLI-A group and the SLI L& A comorbid groups within each grade level, significant differences were found within all grade levels, including the overall score comparison.

speech and language impairment, articulation (SLI-A), speech and language impairment, language and articulation (SLI L&A), developmental delay (DD)