PURPOSE: To investigate the influence of phonological disorder, present at school age on performance on tasks of reading, writing, phonological and auditory processing and the relationships between these variables. METHODS: A total of 28 children regularly enrolled in 4th and 5th grade of elementary schools were divided: Experimental Group 1, Experimental Group 2, and Control Group. The following skills were assessed: reading, writing, phonological and auditory processing. The data were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: Control Group showed better results in reading, writing and processings. Experimental Groups were similar in terms of phonological awareness and phonological short-term memory. Experimental Group 1 showed lower values of performances compared to Experimental 2, with or without statistical significance. Auditory processing was similar among three groups, with the exception of Sequential Verbal Memory task. The three groups showed different patterns of correlations between variables. CONCLUSION: The phonological disorder was associated with worse performance on reading, spelling and phonological processing. The different groups showed different patterns of correlations between reading, writing, listening and phonological processing, which corroborated the results of the comparisons.
Speech disorders; Learning disorders; Language; Auditory perception; Speech; Language and Hearing Sciences