Reading and Math Achievement in Children With Dyslexia, Developmental Language Disorder, or Typical Development: Achievement Gaps Persist From Second Through Fourth Grades.

We examined how children (N = 448) with separate or co-occurring developmental language disorder (DLD) and dyslexia performed on school-based measures of academic functioning between second and fourth grades. Children were recruited from 1 school district in the U.S. state of South Carolina via classroom screenings and met common research criteria for DLD and dyslexia. Growth curve models were used to examine the overall form of growth and differences between groups. Children with DLD and/or dyslexia in second grade showed early and persistent deficits on school-administered measures of reading and math. In second grade, children with typical development (TD) scored significantly higher than children with dyslexia-only and DLD-only, who did not differ from each other. Children with DLD+dyslexia scored significantly lower than all other groups. Only small differences in growth rates were observed, and gaps in second grade did not close. Despite lower academic performance, few children (20%–27%) with dyslexia and/or DLD had received specialized support services. Children with DLD-only received services at less than half the rate of dyslexia-only or DLD+dyslexia despite similar impacts on academic performance. Evidence of significant and persistent functional impacts in the context of low rates of support services in these children—especially those with DLD-only—highlights the need to raise awareness of these disorders.

我们研究了448名患有单独的或同时患有发展性语言障碍（DLD）和阅读障碍的儿童在二到四年级之间基于学校的学业功能测评中的表现。这些儿童是通过课堂筛查从美国南卡罗来纳州的一个学区招募的，并且符合DLD和阅读障碍的常见研究标准。生长曲线模型被用于检验生长的总体形式以及组间差异。二年级患有DLD和/或阅读障碍的儿童在学校实施的阅读和数学测评中表现出早期且持续的缺陷。在二年级，发育正常（TD）的儿童得分显著高于仅有阅读障碍和仅有DLD的儿童，而后两者之间没有差异。患有DLD +阅读障碍的儿童得分显著低于所有其他组。仅观察到增长率的微小差异，二年级时的差距没有缩小。尽管学业表现较差，但患有阅读障碍和/或DLD的儿童中只有少数（20% - 27%）接受了专门的支持服务。仅有DLD的儿童接受服务的比率不到仅有阅读障碍或DLD +阅读障碍儿童的一半，尽管对学业表现的影响相似。在这些儿童（尤其是仅有DLD的儿童）支持服务率较低的情况下，存在显著且持续的功能影响的证据，凸显了提高对这些障碍的认识的必要性。