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Visual and auditory temporal processing and early reading development

Michelle Hood and Liz Conlon

Griffith University, Australia e.conlon@griffith.edu.au

Abstract

A longitudinal study was conducted in which language, reading, spelling, visual and auditory temporal processing measures were obtained at pre-school, Grade 1 and Grade 2 for 166 non-selected children. Temporal processing measures included visual and auditory temporal order judgements, and a visual rapid sequencing task. While there is evidence of weak relationships between some language measures and visual and auditory processing in unselected primary school children (Talcott et al., 2002), it is not clear to what extent this applies to an unselected sample of beginner readers. Two issues will be discussed. First, the extent to which performance on the visual and auditory processing measures obtained at pre-school predicts reading and spelling skills at Grade 1 and Grade 2 was assessed. Results show that, with environment and IQ controlled for, relationships between temporal processing and reading ability that have been previously demonstrated in older samples are present from a pre-reading stage and significantly predict early reading and spelling. Second, the extent to which these measures may change with development over this 3-year period was assessed- do children stay in the same place within the distribution? This second issue is concerned with two aspects -reliability of these measures and growth patterns. If there is consistency with respect to location of children on these measures across years, then this has implications for these measures in assessment of risk in early reading development.

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