Sentence repetition as a potential indicator of broader language difficulty in students with dyslexia: A pilot study
摘要
Sentence repetition tasks have been shown to be sensitive indicators of developmental language disorder (DLD), with prior work demonstrating strong group-level differences between children with DLD and typically developing peers. However, less is known about how sentence repetition performance relates to broader language difficulties among students already identified with dyslexia. Dyslexia is characterized primarily by word-level reading and spelling difficulties, yet many students with dyslexia also exhibit oral language weaknesses consistent with DLD, which carry important implications for academic outcomes. The present pilot study examined whether sentence repetition performance was associated with indicators of broader language difficulty among students with dyslexia. Participants were 22 fourth-grade students attending a specialized school for language-based learning disabilities, all of whom carried a diagnosis of dyslexia. Sentence repetition performance was examined in relation to students’ current or recent qualification for speech-language services, used as a proxy indicator of broader language difficulty. Students receiving speech-language services demonstrated substantially lower sentence repetition scores than their peers with dyslexia who were not receiving services, with a large group difference observed. Logistic regression was used descriptively to illustrate how sentence repetition performance corresponded to observed service-status groupings in this small sample. Findings should be interpreted as preliminary and associative, consistent with the exploratory nature of the study. Results suggest that sentence repetition performance may warrant further investigation as a potential indicator of broader language vulnerability within dyslexia-identified populations and highlight the need for larger, prospective studies examining oral language assessment in students with dyslexia.