Purpose: Vocabulary, which is among early literacy skills, is considered a crucial predictor of children's future reading and comprehension abilities. Early literacy encompasses the fundamental knowledge, skills, and attitudes that children need to acquire regarding reading and writing during the preschool period. Working memory is an important mechanism that shapes the individual's life and enables the storage, processing and interaction of information with long-term memory during the learning process. This study aims to compare early literacy and working memory skills of preschool children with and without stuttering.
Method: The study consisted of 20 children who stutter (study group) and 18 children who do not stutter (control group) between the ages of 60-72 months. Of the study group participants, 70% (n=14) were male and 30% (n=6) were female. Of the control group participants, 56% (n=10) were male and 44% (n=8) were female. Participants completed a descriptive information form, and EROT, a standardized early litercy test in Turkish and the Working Memory Scale (WMS) were administered to them. The EROT administered to participants consists of seven subtests, including receptive vocabulary knowledge, expressive vocabulary knowledge, functional knowledge, general naming, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and listening comprehension. The WMS, on the other hand, consists of two subdimensions, including verbal memory and visual memory. This research was designed as a descriptive comparative study.
Results: In the comparison of early literacy skills between children who stutter and those who do not, no statistically significant differences were found in the expressive language subtests of the EROT, including vocabulary knowledge (U=115.500, p=0,052), functional knowledge (U=139.000, p=0,201), letter knowledge (U=168.000, p=0,702), and listening comprehension (U=122.000, p=0,061). However, statistically significant differences were observed in receptive vocabulary knowledge (U=94,000, p=0,010), general naming (U=59,000, p=0,000), phonological awareness (U=33,000, p=0,000), and total EROT scores (U=26,000, p=0,000) (p<0,05). In the subtests of the WMS, including verbal memory (U=160,000, p=0,551), visual memory (U=169,500, p=0,758), and total raw WMS scores (U=156,500, p=0,490), no statistically significant differences were found between the groups (p>0,05).
Conclusion: The working memory skills of preschool children who stutter were found to be similar to those of their peers. However, in early literacy skills, they performed weaker than children without stuttering in receptive vocabulary, general naming, phonological awareness, and the total score of the EROT subtests. As a result, it has been concluded that children who stutter may experience difficulties in reading and phonological discrimination. It is important to consider these challenges during the assessment and intervention stages for these children. Additionally, early literacy screenings conducted during the preschool period could help identify children who are likely to experience difficulties in these skills and provide early support for those in the at-risk group.
Keywords
early literacy development, study time, preschool, stuttering, speech disorder
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