Language performance and reading ability at 8 years of age

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Abstract
Language performance measures obtained from poor readers at 8 years of age were significantly poorer than those for matched good readers. Impairment affected both language comprehension, as measured by the Token Test, and language production, as measured by a detailed syntactic analysis of spoken language samples. Children with combined performance impairment (both comprehension and production) were the poorest readers, and children with no measured language impairment were the best. Subjects with single-modality impairment (comprehension or production) were average readers at age 8. By age 9, the combined performance impairment group had deteriorated in reading level (against age), as had the comprehension impairment group. The results support proposals for age-dependent differences between reading groups, and further suggest that syntactic impairment may exert a greater constraint on reading ability with increasing age.