Já é conhecida a relação de reciprocidade entre consciência fonológica e habilidades de leitura. Diversas pesquisas demonstraram o efeito direto do treino em habilidades de consciência fonológica sobre a aquisição da leitura e como o treino sistemático da leitura auxilia no desenvolvimento de níveis mais complexos de consciência fonológica. Dentro deste contexto, o objetivo da pesquisa foi verificar a eficácia do CD-ROM Alfabetização Fônica Computadorizada no desenvolvimento de habilidades de consciência fonológica e de leitura em crianças do segundo ano do ensino fundamental. Participaram do estudo 81 crianças, com idades entre seis e oito anos, de ambos os sexos, matriculadas no segundo ano de uma escola municipal da periferia de um município com 30.000 habitantes. Para avaliar a consciência fonológica foi aplicada a Prova de Consciência Fonológica. Para avaliar as habilidades de leitura utilizou-se uma versão da Provinha Brasil e uma prova de leitura oral de palavras. Foi adotado um delineamento de comparação de grupos com três momentos de avaliação. No primeiro momento, todas as crianças foram avaliadas. Depois da primeira avaliação, foi conduzida a intervenção somente com as crianças do Grupo 1. Na intervenção, as atividades do CD-ROM foram distribuídas em dez sessões, que aconteciam duas vezes por semana. Ao final da intervenção, todos os participantes foram avaliados novamente. As crianças do Grupo 2 passaram pela intervenção depois da segunda avaliação. Após o término da intervenção no Grupo 2, foi realizada a última avaliação nos dois grupos. Os resultados foram analisados em termos de efeito da intervenção e resposta à intervenção em função do repertório prévio de habilidades de consciência fonológica. Em relação aos efeitos da intervenção, os resultados indicaram que o programa teve impacto direto nas habilidades de síntese fonêmica e segmentação fonêmica dos participantes. Isso foi observado pela diferença significativa entre os grupos apresentada na segunda avaliação, quando apenas um dos grupos havia sido submetido à intervenção. Nas outras habilidades envolvidas na consciência fonológica e nas habilidades de leitura, os resultados não indicaram efeito significativo da intervenção, mas mostraram desenvolvimento dessas habilidades ao longo do ano letivo. Para avaliar a resposta à intervenção em função do repertório prévio, os participantes foram classificados em cinco perfis de desenvolvimento das habilidades de consciência fonológica, antes e depois da intervenção. A comparação entre as avaliações pré e pós-intervenção mostrou que as crianças com repertório de entrada mais refinado, ou seja, com habilidades fonológicas mais desenvolvidas, foram as mais beneficiadas pelo programa. / The reciprocal relationship between phonological awareness and reading skills is already known. Several studies have demonstrated the direct effect of training in phonological awareness on reading acquisition and how the systematic training of reading supports the development of more complex levels of phonological awareness. In this context, the aim of the research was to determine the effectiveness of the CD-ROM Alfabetização Fônica Computadorizada in the development of phonological awareness and reading in children from the second year of elementary school. The study included 81 children, aged between six and eight years old, of both sexes, enrolled in the second year of a public school on the outskirts of a town with 30,000 inhabitants. To assess phonological awareness, the Phonological Awareness Test was applied. To assess reading skills, a version of Provinha Brasil and an oral word reading test were applied. We adopted a randomized comparison of groups in three evaluation moments. At first, all children were assessed. After the first assessment, the intervention was conducted only on children from Group 1. During the intervention, the activities of the CD-ROM were distributed over ten sessions, which happened twice a week. At the end of the intervention, all participants were assessed again. Children from Group 2 went through the intervention after the second evaluation. At the end of the intervention in Group 2, the last evaluation was conducted in both groups. The results were analyzed in terms of the effect of the intervention and response to intervention due to prior repertoire of phonological awareness. Regarding the effects of the intervention, the results indicated that the program had a direct impact on phonemic synthesis and phonemic segmentation skills of the participants. This was observed through the significant difference between the groups during the second evaluation, when only one of the groups had been subjected to the intervention. In relation to the other skills involved in phonological awareness and reading skills, the results indicated no significant effect arising from the intervention, but showed development of these skills throughout the school year. In order to evaluate the response to the intervention as a function of prior repertoire, participants were classified into five development profiles of phonological awareness skills before and after the intervention. The comparison between pre- and post-intervention assessments showed that children with a more refined repertoire of entry, i.e. with more developed phonological skills, were the most benefited from the program.

A criança, desde muito precoce, domina a linguagem sob forma de compreensão e produção, habilidades que ocorrem espontaneamente como parte de seu desenvolvimento; só mais tarde se torna capaz de controlar conscientemente os tratamentos lingüísticos que realiza. A essa capacidade se dá o nome de habilidade metalingüística, que deve ser diferenciada da simples possibilidade de linguagem. Todas as aquisições da criança comportam sempre “metaprocessos", presentes em todos os níveis do desenvolvimento e não apenas tardiamente. Isto permite distinguir os “metaprocessos precoces" dos “metaprocessos tardios", que se tornam disponíveis para a consciência e são verbalizáveis. Assim, as habilidades metalingüísticas ocorrem como resultados explícitos de aprendizagem, freqüentemente de natureza escolar. É objetivo desta pesquisa avaliar a eficácia de um programa de desenvolvimento de habilidades metafonológicas no Ambiente de aprendizagem “Realidade Suplementar". A pesquisa foi realizada em três escolas do Ensino Fundamental, com quatro Classes de Recuperação de Ciclo da Rede Estadual. A amostra compõe-se de quatro Grupos de Controle (GCa.1; GCa.2 e GCb.1; GCb.2) e de dois Grupos de Intervenção (GI.1 e GI.2). Para se identificarem os alunos que compuseram os grupos, foram utilizados a Prova de Consciência Fonológica (PCF) e o Teste de Desempenho Escolar (TDE), aplicados a todos os alunos da sala. Após a determinação da média/mediana dos resultados compostos nos dois testes, foi separada a metade dos alunos que obtiveram resultados maiores que a média/mediana como sendo o GCa. A outra metade dos alunos, com rendimento inferior à média/mediana, foi dividida em dois subgrupos, sendo um quarto dos alunos da classe para o GCb, que não participam da intervenção, e o outro quarto para o GI, cujos alunos participariam da intervenção, através do programa de treinamento das habilidades metafonológicas no ambiente de aprendizagem de “Realidade Suplementar" (RS). A amostra total de 61 alunos foi distribuída assim: 27 alunos para o GCa, sendo (GCa.1 – 14 alunos e GCa.2 – 13 alunos), 18 alunos para o GCb, sendo (GCb.1 - 08 alunos e GCb.2 – 10 alunos); 16 alunos para o GI, sendo (GI.1 – 07 alunos e GI.2 – 09 alunos). Para a análise dos dados quantitativos, colhidos através da PCF e do TDE, foi utilizado o Pacote Estatístico SPSS. Os dados qualitativos foram submetidos à análise sociométrica. Os resultados obtidos através das análises estatísticas revelaram diferenças significativas na PCF e no TDE para o grupo de intervenção, na Realidade Suplementar, tanto no pós-teste em relação ao pré-teste, como na comparação com os Grupos de Controle, demonstrando a eficácia da mesma. / The child, since his/her early days, masters the language under both the shape of comprehension and production, abilities that come up spontaneously as part of its proper individual development for, only later on, he/she will be able to control with awareness, the linguistic treatments that he/she has been envolved. To this awareness capacity the name of metalinguitic ability comes up, which must be differentiated of the simple language possibilities. All of the child´s acquisition always become “metaprocesses" available at every level of the infant development, not just something about to happen later on.This situation permits us distinguish the “precoucious metaprocesses" from the “ retarded ones", those which become available for both conscience and verbalization attitudes. Thus, the metalinguistic skills occur as a result of explicit apprenticeship, frequently derived of a schooling nature. It is objective of this research to evaluate the effectiveness of a Program of metaphonological skills development performed in learning environments of the sort “Suplementary Reality". The research was achieved at 3 Fundamental Schools holding 4 Recuperation Classes in the Cycle at given State School network.The sample is made up of 4 Groups of Control (GCa.1; GCa.2; and Gcb.1; GCb.2) and 2 Groups of Intervention(GI.1 and GI. 2). For the identification of the students who shared these groups, both the Phonological Awareness Proof (PCF) and The Schooling Performance Test(TDE) were applied to every single student in the classroom. Shortly after that both the average/median were obtained based on both tests , the half of the students who held better achievement scores than the average/median were named GCa. The other half of students, holding an inferior yielding regarding the average/median was devided into 2 subgroups, being that one fourth of students in the classroom was named GCb, that is, to those that did not partake in the intervention, and another quarter to the GI, those who would be sharing the intervention later on, via the Program of Metaphological Skills abilities in the learning environment of Suplementary Reality(RS). The total sample of 61 students was distributed as follows: 27 students for the GCa, being (GCa.1 – 14 students and GCa.2 – 13 students), 18 students to the GCb being ( GCb 8 students and GCb.2 – 10 students), 16 students at GI being (GI.1 – 7 students and GI.2 –9 students). For the analysis of the quantitative data that were collected via (PCF – TDE), it was used the Statistical Package SPSS. On the other hand, the qualitative data were submitted to a sociometric analysis. The results obtained through the statistical analysis revealed significative differences at the PCF, at the TDE, that is, for the Intervention Group, at the Supplemetary Reality, as well as at after –testing regarding the pre-testing, as well while comparing the same values with other groups of control, the effectiveness showed to be the same

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2018-06-21T13:30:51Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Débora Mattos Marques_.pdf: 5619293 bytes, checksum: cba1a8b5c1da2ba958aad79c3f5b630e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-21T13:30:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Débora Mattos Marques_.pdf: 5619293 bytes, checksum: cba1a8b5c1da2ba958aad79c3f5b630e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-28 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / É quase consenso na literatura que a consciência fonológica está ligada às habilidades de leitura e escrita, e isso tem promovido pesquisas a respeito daqueles indivíduos com trajetórias diferentes de desenvolvimento e que não alcançam (ou alcançam tardiamente) a capacidade de ler e escrever fluentemente. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo principal fazer uma revisão crítica da literatura a fim de olhar para pesquisas realizadas com a intenção de fortalecer a consciência fonológica em indivíduos de quatro amostras de desenvolvimento atípico: síndrome de Williams, Autismo, síndrome de Down, e Dislexia, com possível impacto nas habilidades de leitura e de escrita. Foram utilizadas quatro bases de dados, com buscas em português, inglês e espanhol, resultando em um total de 34 textos incluídos para esta análise. As pesquisas mostraram que as intervenções com foco em consciência fonológica são favoráveis ao desenvolvimento de habilidades de leitura e escrita também nessas populações e suscitaram reflexões a respeito das metodologias utilizadas, tempos de treinamento, número de informantes, entre outros aspectos. / It is almost consensual in the literature that phonological awareness is linked to reading and writing skills, and this has promoted research on individuals with different developmental trajectories who do not develop (or do it later) the ability to read and write fluently. The main objective of this dissertation is to do a critical review of papers that focus on the reinforcement of phonological awareness in individuals from four atypical populations: Williams Syndrome, Autism, Down Syndrome and Dyslexia, with potential impact on reading and writing skills. We searched papers on four databases, using keywords in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. The result is an amount of of 34 papers, analized in this study. The papers we found have shown that interventions focused on phonological awareness are favorable to the development of reading and writing skills in these populations, which raised some considerations about methodologies, training duration, number of informants, among other aspects.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:56:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Lina Maria de Moraes Carvalho.pdf: 2076667 bytes, checksum: 24e1089cb7ab98626664b8149c9eab29 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-11-12 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Recent developed researches at the area of Cognitive Science of Reading are emphasizing the importance of the metalinguistics skills to promote the success at the initial learning of reading and writing. Programs of pedagogical intervention aim to develop abilities of phonological awareness have shown themselves efficacious to favour the development of these abilities and the learning of reading and writing, including at students with difficulties at this learning. Based on these assumptions and considering the reduced number of these researches in Brazil, specially with students who have difficulties at learning of written language, the present study investigated the effects of a program of intervention - composed by activities and games which aim to develop abilities of phonological awareness - about the learning of reading and writing of children from the 3rd and 4th junior school with difficulties at this learning. The research was done at a public municipal school, in Teresina-Pí. The study involved 18 children both genders distributed in two groups: the experimental group with 9 children aged 7,1 to 9,3 years and the control group with 9 children aged 7,5 to 9,1 years. The research followed the experimental design developed in three phases: pre-test, intervention and pos-test. Tests of phonological awareness, written of words, reading of words and knowledge of letters were used. The written test was applied simultaneously to the children and the others were applied individually by the researcher to each children before and after the intervention. The intervention program is composed by five units of activities and games which aim to develop phonological awareness skills. It was developed by the researcher with the participants of the experimental group, three times a week, in 24 sessions of activities, each one lasts 90 minutes. The data were analyzed and discussed in confront to other results of research in this field. The results showed positive effects of the intervention on the performance of the experimental group, at the abilities of phonological awareness as at the writing and reading of words, supporting the hypothesis of co-relation between the deficit in phonological awareness and difficulties at the acquisition of reading and writing. These results confirm that the programs of instructive activities in phonological awareness are efficacious to develop the phonological awareness and favour the acquisition of reading and writing in students with difficulties at the learning of these abilities. The results give evidences on the importance of explicit and systematic teaching of correspondences between graphemes and phonemes and phonemic awareness at the beginning of school learning, to promote the success at the learning of reading and writing, showing it s better to prevent than to remedy / Pesquisas recentes desenvolvidas na área da Ciência Cognitiva da Leitura vêm enfatizando a importância das habilidades metalinguísticas para promover o sucesso na aprendizagem inicial da leitura e da escrita. Programas de intervenção pedagógica visando desenvolver habilidades de consciência fonológica têm se mostrado eficazes para favorecer o desenvolvimento dessas habilidades e a aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita, inclusive em alunos com dificuldades nessa aprendizagem. Com base nesses pressupostos e considerando o reduzido número dessas pesquisas no Brasil, principalmente com alunos com dificuldades na aprendizagem da linguagem escrita, o presente estudo investigou os efeitos de um programa de intervenção - composto de atividades e jogos visando desenvolver habilidades de consciência fonológica - sobre a aprendizagem da leitura e escrita de crianças de 3º e 4º anos do Ensino Fundamental com dificuldades nessa aprendizagem. A pesquisa foi realizada em uma escola pública municipal, em Teresina-Pí. Participaram do estudo 18 crianças de ambos os sexos, distribuídas em dois grupos, o experimental com 9 crianças com idade de 7;1 a 9;3 anos e o grupo controle com 9 crianças com idade de 7;5 a 9;1 anos. A pesquisa seguiu o delineamento experimental e foi desenvolvida em três fases: pré-teste, intervenção e pós-teste. Foram utilizadas provas de consciência fonológica, escrita de palavras, leitura de palavras e conhecimento de letras. A prova de escrita foi aplicada coletivamente e as outras individualmente pela pesquisadora a todas as crianças antes e após a intervenção. O programa de intervenção é composto de 5 unidades de atividades e jogos visando desenvolver habilidades de consciência fonológica nos níveis suprassegmentar e segmentar da fala. Foi desenvolvido pela pesquisadora com os participantes do grupo experimental, três vezes por semana, em 24 sessões de atividades, cada uma com duração de 90 minutos. Os dados foram analisados e discutidos em confronto com outros resultados de pesquisas da área. Os resultados mostraram efeitos positivos da intervenção sobre o desempenho dos participantes do grupo experimental, tanto nas habilidades de consciência fonológica quanto de escrita e de leitura de palavras, dando suporte às hipóteses de correlação entre déficit em consciência fonológica e dificuldades na aquisição da leitura e da escrita. Os achados confirmam que programas de atividades instrutivas em consciência fonológica são eficazes para desenvolver consciência fonológica e favorecer a aquisição da leitura e da escrita em alunos com dificuldades na aprendizagem dessas habilidades. Os resultados evidenciam claramente a importância do ensino explícito e sistemático das correspondências entre grafemas e fonemas e da instrução em consciência fonêmica no início da aprendizagem escolar para promover o sucesso na aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita, mostrando que é melhor prevenir do que remediar

Submitted by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2017-10-05T13:05:26Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Consciência_fonológica_e_sua_relação_com_a_escrita.pdf: 1998040 bytes, checksum: c9f2aa3d3d49f57bc1c22b9fac930aaa (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2017-10-05T13:16:50Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Consciência_fonológica_e_sua_relação_com_a_escrita.pdf: 1998040 bytes, checksum: c9f2aa3d3d49f57bc1c22b9fac930aaa (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-05T13:17:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Consciência_fonológica_e_sua_relação_com_a_escrita.pdf: 1998040 bytes, checksum: c9f2aa3d3d49f57bc1c22b9fac930aaa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-22 / Sem bolsa / A presente pesquisa tem por objetivo investigar a consciência fonológica da rima silábica e sua relação com a escrita, a partir das pistas dessa consciência em dois grupos de crianças, repetentes e não repetentes, estudantes do 3º ano de uma escola pública da cidade de Pelotas/RS, estabelecendo, pois, um comparativo entre os níveis de CF de ambos os grupos. Para tanto, partiu-se da hipótese de que as crianças não repetentes tendem a apresentar melhor desempenho nas tarefas aplicadas. A metodologia foi composta por três etapas: (i) aplicação de teste de consciência fonológica, a partir do CONFIAS, Consciência Fonológica Instrumento de Avaliação Sequencial (MOOJEN et al., 2003); (ii) atividade de ligar os pares das figuras que rimam; (iii) atividade de escrita das palavras que rimam ao lado de seus respectivos pares. Após a coleta, os dados foram transcritos e analisados na ordem em que foram coletados: a) teste de CF, b) liga da relação de palavra e c) escrita de palavras. Os dados referentes às três modalidades de coleta foram analisados individualmente para posterior comparação, à luz das teorias da Sílaba (SELKIRK, 1982) e da Geometria de Traços (CLEMENTS e HUME, 1995). Quanto à aplicação do CONFIAS, os resultados revelaram que ambos os grupos investigados demonstraram índices de acertos semelhantes, visto que a diferença entre um grupo e outro é pouco significativa. Em relação às tarefas do instrumento, observou-se que os sujeitos manifestaram maior dificuldade nas tarefas relativas ao nível do fonema, indo ao encontro da literatura da área (GOMBERT, 1992; FREITAS, 2004; SILVA e CAPELLINI, 2009, dentre outros). Sendo assim, as tarefas relativas ao nível intrassilábico são consideradas complicadas para ambos os grupos. Considerando-se os dados gerais, nas atividades de ligar os pares de rimas silábicas com codas em /R/, /l/ e /s/, constatou-se que os alunos não repetentes apresentaram escores de acertos mais elevados, se comparados aos repetentes. A análise dos dados apontou, ainda, que existe uma relação entre a CF e a aquisição da escrita, já que os alunos não repetentes revelaram um melhor desempenho no teste de CF e um menor número de erros na escrita. Concluiu-se, portanto, que as crianças não repetentes apresentam desempenho em CF superior aos repetentes, bem como o fato de que a consciência fonológica desempenha papel fundamental na aprendizagem da escrita. / This research aims to investigate phonological awareness of syllabic rhyme and its relationship with writing, observing phonological awareness clues in writing of two groups of third year students (repeating and not repeating) of a public school in Pelotas city / RS, evaluating and comparing phonological awareness levels of these two groups. The methodology was composed of three steps: (i) application of phonological awareness test, from the CONFIAS, Phonological Consciousness Sequential Assessment Instrument (MOOJEN et al., 2003); (Ii) activity of binding the pairs of rhyming figures; (Iii) writing activity of words that rhyme alongside their respective peers. After data collection, description and analysis of the results were made in different samples. Description and analysis of the research are evaluated in the order that was made: phonological awareness test, word alloy and written word, and results of three data collection methods are analyzed individually for comparison. Description and analysis occur in light of Syllable Theory (SELKIRK, 1982) and Geometry Trace (CLEMENTS AND HUME, 1995). Regarding the application of CONFIAS, the results revealed that both groups investigated showed similar success indexes, since the difference between one group and another is not significant. Regarding the tasks of the instrument, it was observed that the subjects showed greater difficulty in the tasks related to the level of the phoneme (GOMBERT, 1992; FREITAS, 2004; SILVA and CAPELLINI, 2009, among others). Thus, tasks related to the intra-syllabic level are considered complicated for both groups. Considering the general data, in the activities of linking the pairs of syllabic rhymes with codas in /R/, /l/ and /s/, it was found that non-repeating students presented higher scores than the repeating ones. Data analysis also pointed out that there is a relationship between CF and writing acquisition, since non-repeating students showed a better performance in the CF test and a lower number of writing errors. It was concluded, therefore, that non-repeating children present higher CF performance than repeaters, as well as the fact that phonological awareness plays a fundamental role in writing learning.

Pessoas com fissura lábio palatina apresentam alterações na acuidade auditiva por um grande período de suas vidas, ou por toda vida, devido à constante disfunção tubária, que acarreta a otite média, impedindo assim uma recepção adequada dos sons da fala. Influência de otite média durante a infância é uma das características que está associada com o distúrbio de aprendizagem e transtornos de processamento auditivo. A consciência fonológica envolve o reconhecimento de que as palavras são formadas por diferentes sons que podem ser manipulados, abrangendo além da capacidade de reflexão (constatar e comparar), também a de operação com fonemas, sílabas, rimas e aliterações (contar, segmentar, unir, adicionar, suprimir, substituir e transpor). O objetivo principal deste trabalho foi estudar a associação entre a consciência fonológica e o processamento temporal em crianças com fissura labiopalatina. Foram avaliadas 41 crianças de ambos os sexos, com idades entre 7 anos e 10 anos e 11 meses, com fissura labiopalatina transforame unilateral, sem outras anomalias associadas ou síndromes. As crianças foram submetidas ao teste de processamento temporal Random Gap Detection Test (RGDT) e a avaliação de consciência fonológica CONFIAS adaptada com figuras. Os resultados indicaram não haver associação, nesta amostra, entre a consciência fonológica e o processamento temporal. Porem outros estudos devem ser realizados com um número maior de crianças na amostra. / Persons with cleft lip and palate presents alterations in the auditory sharpness by a big period of his lives, or by all life, because the constant tube dysfunction, that causes otitis media, stopping like this an adequate reception of the sounds of the speak. Influence of the otitis media during the childhood is one of the characteristics that is associated with the disturbance of learning and auditory process disorders. The phonological awareness involves the recognition of that the words are graduates by different sounds that can be manipulated, including beyond the capacity of reflection (establish and compare), also the operation with phonemes, syllables, rhymes and alliterations (count, segment, unite, add, suppress, replace and transpose). The main objective of this work was study the association between the phonological awareness and the temporal processing in childrens with cleft lip and palate.The work counted on 41 children of both sexes, with ages between 7 years and 10years and 11 monts, with cleft lip and palate, without other anomalies associated or syndromes. The children were submitted temporal processing test Random Gap Detection Test (RGDT) and the evaluation of the phonological awareness CONFIAS, adapted with figures. The results showed there isnt association, in this sample, bettween the phonological awareness and the temporal processing. But others studies should be realized with more children in the sample.

Within the current decade, the number of Hispanic students has doubled so that about 16% of the total student population within the United States are Spanish-speakers (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017). With this growing population comes a responsibility to understand and implement best practices for educating these students. Because literacy is a building-block for learning, one integral part of this responsibility consists of developing valid and reliable means of assessing pre-reading skills that are predictive of later reading abilities (Lonigan, Burgess, & Anthony, 2000; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994). English-language learning children are being identified for having reading difficulties and disabilities two to three years later than their English-proficient peers (Chu & Flores, 2011). As a population, they are also overly misidentified as having reading difficulties/disabilities and being unnecessarily placed into a special education system (McCardle, Mele-McCarthy, Cutting, Leos, & D’Emilio, 2005b; Sanatullova Allison & Robinson-Young, 2016). Per a nationwide survey of Speech-Language Pathologists, one large contributing factor for this dilemma is the lack of appropriate assessment instruments (Roseberry-McKibbin, Brice, & O’Hanlon, 2005). Phonological awareness is the ability to focus on and manipulate units of spoken language (words, syllables, onsets, rimes, and/or phonemes). It is one of the most significant predictors of later reading abilities. A large body of evidence provides support for this within the English language but also within other alphabetic languages, such as Spanish (e.g. Carillo, 1994; Durgunoglu, Nagy, Hancin-Bhatt, 1993; Schneider, Kuspert, Roth, Vise, & Marx, 1997). Thus, assessments of phonological awareness have been shown to be reliable measures that predict later reading abilities in Spanish-speaking children and English-proficient children alike (Farver, Nakamoto, & Lonigan, 2007). There are many standardized assessments available to test phonological awareness as an emergent literacy skill in English. In congruence with the previously mentioned nationwide survey, Spanish assessments of phonological awareness are less abundant. Additionally, these tests tend to be expensive, time-consuming to give, and require training of the administrator. These tests are static in nature and regularly require the child to comprehend complex administrative instructions which is often problematic for children with limited language skills in Spanish and/or English (Barker, Bridges, & Saunders, 2014). The current study aims to build upon existing data regarding development of the DAPA-S by evaluating the validity of a shorter version of the DAPA-S (the DAPA-S Short Form) with children from Spanish-speaking backgrounds. The DAPA-S Short form was designed with the purpose of retaining all the test items of the full version but with an altered structure which allows for significantly shorter administration time. The DAPA-S and the shorter version were both designed as Spanish dynamic assessments of phonological awareness which are computerized, have simple instructions, provide information about a child’s ability to learn from instruction, and do not require speech responses. The twelve participants that were involved in this study were given the DAPA-S Short Form as well as other assessments related to phonological awareness or emergent reading. Three of those participants did not complete the study due to poor attendance or behavioral challenges. Therefore, this study reports on nine participants who completed the full assessment battery. To investigate concurrent validity, correlational analysis was performed with the DAPA-S Short Form scores and scores from a measure of phonological awareness, the Test of Phonological Sensitivity in Spanish (TOPSS; Brea, Silliman, Bahr, & Bryant, 2003). The Elision, Rapid Automatic Naming, and Letter Name/ Letter Sound subtests from the TOPSS were administered. No significant correlations were observed between either subtest from the DAPA-S Short Form and any of the subtests from the TOPSS (r = .49 for Elision, r = .36 for RAN, r = .43 for Letter Name/Letter Sound subtests). Therefore, concurrent validity was not established as measured in this study. To investigate convergent validity, correlational analysis was performed with the DAPA-S Short Form subtests and the scores from a measure of Spanish emergent reading skills, the Letter-word Identification (LWID) subtest from the Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey – Revised (WMLS-R; Woodcock, Muñoz – Sandoval, Ruef, & Alvarado, 2005). Significant correlation was observed between the First Syllable subtest of the DAPA-S Short Form and the test of emergent literacy (r = .87, p < .01); no significant correlation was observed for the Last Syllable subtest of the DAPA-S Short Form (r = .44) and the test of emergent literacy. Therefore, the First Syllable subtest from the DAPA-S Short Form demonstrates good convergent validity, while the Last Syllable subtest did not. Data suggests that the DAPA-S Short Form demonstrates excellent internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .99 for both subtests) but requires modifications and further testing with a larger sample size in order to be considered as a valid measure of phonological awareness. If developed through further research, the DAPA-S Short Form as well as the full version of the assessment could prove to be invaluable tools in educational and clinical settings.

Literacy development in Spanish-speaking children is a growing concern in the United States (Invernizzi, 2009). Phonological awareness is a predictor of literacy achievement in most alphabetic languages (Anthony et al., 2011; Davison & Brea-Spahn, 2012; Durgunoğlu, Nagy, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993; Goikoetxea, 2005). Bilingual children with complex communication needs (CCN) demonstrate increased difficulties in speaking, reading, and writing, making learning two languages a difficult task (Toppelberg, Snow, & Tager-Flusberg, 1999). Literacy attainment in bilingual individuals who have CCN is important to improve their overall language development and communication interaction skills (Harrison-Harris, 2002). A valid and reliable phonological awareness assessment that does not require speech is needed in order to provide appropriate instruction and address desired literacy goals (Barker, Bridges, & Saunders, 2014). The goal of this study is to describe pilot data from the Dynamic Assessment of Phonemic Awareness in Spanish (DAPA-S), a new dynamic phonological awareness assessment that does not require speech responses, with children from Latin American Spanish-speaking backgrounds, in order to determine its construct validity. DAPA-S was administered over the course of one to three sessions to ten participants (six males and four females). Participants also received the Identificación de letras y palabras (Letter-Word Identification; LWID) subscale from the Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey–Revised (WMLS-R; Woodcock, Muñoz- Sandoval, Ruef, & Alvarado, 2005) as an emergent reading skill task and three subtests from the Test of Phonological Sensitivity in Spanish (TOPSS; Brea, Silliman, Bahr, & Bryant, 2003):letter-name and letter-sound, elision, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) as assessments of phonological awareness. To evaluate concurrent validity, Pearson correlations and bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals were calculated between the DAPA-S total score and the measures of phonological awareness from the TOPSS. The DAPA-S demonstrated strong and significant correlations with elision, RAN, and the letter-sound subtests rs = –.67 to .87, ps = .00 to .03. These results indicated that the DAPA-S likely measured the same construct as the other measures of phonological awareness from the TOPSS. To evaluate convergent validity, Pearson correlations and bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals were calculated between LWID of the WMLS-R and the DAPA-S total score. The DAPA-S demonstrated a strong and significant correlation, r = .75, p < .05. The data suggest a high degree of both concurrent and convergent validity, as many of the conventional measures of phonological awareness and emergent reading were significantly correlated with the DAPA-S, including letter-sound, RAN, and LWID. Overall, the pattern of results suggests that the DAPA-S may be a reliable and valid tool for measurement of phonological awareness in Spanish.

Multiple domains of deficit have been proposed to account for the apparent reading failure of children with a reading disability. Deficits in both phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming are consistently linked with the development of a reading disability in young school age children. Less research, however, has sought to connect these two reading related processes to global theories of deficit, such as temporal processing deficits, in the explanation of reading fluency difficulties. This study sought to explore the relationship between aspects of temporal processing, as indexed through measures of motor fluency and control, and measures of reading related processes, phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming, to word reading fluency. Using structural equation modeling, measures of patterned motor movement were found to be negatively and significantly related to measures of phonological awareness. Measures of oral and repetitive movement were found to be positively and significantly related to measures of patterned movement. Finally, phonological awareness was found to be a significant predictor of word reading fluency both independently and through rapid automatized naming. No direct relationship between measures of motor control and fluency and word reading fluency was found. These findings suggest that temporal processing, as indexed by measures of motor fluency and control, are moderately predictive of the facility with which a child with a reading disability can access, manipulate, and reproduce phonetically based information. Implications for the inclusion of motor based measures in the assessment of children with reading disabilities and future directions for research are discussed.

The structure of phonological processing for typically developing children has been debated over the past two decades. Recent research has indicated that phonological processing is best explained by a single underlying phonological ability (e.g., Anthony and Lonigan, 2004). The current study had two goals. The first goal was to determine the structure of phonological processing for school-age children with mild intellectual disabilities (MID). The second goal was to determine the relationship between the components of phonological processing and expressive and receptive language ability. The participants were 222 school-age children identified by their schools as having MID. Confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to determine the structure of phonological processing. The results indicated that a model with one phonological awareness factor and one naming speed factor explained the data better than competing models with a single latent factor or more than two latent factors. There was a negative significant relationship between phonological processing and naming speed. There were positive bivariate relationships between phonological processing and expressive and receptive language. There were negative bivariate relationships between naming speed and expressive and receptive language. These results are consistent with other research findings with typically developing children, indicating a similarity in the relationships between phonological process and language for children with MID. Theoretical and instructional implications are discussed.