Nonword Repetition in Terms of Subtypes of Children with Speech Sound Disorders

Objectives: This study aimed to examine nonword repetition performances between children with speech sound disorders (SSD) with and without co-occurring language disorders and in subgroups of SSD by linguistic symptomatology. Methods: This study included 206 typically developing children, 120 children with SSD and 44 children with language impairments aged 3 to 7 years. All participants were asked to repeat nonword lists and the percent of correct nonword repetitions were measured by items, syllables, and phonemes. Nonword repetition performances were compared among typically developing children, children with SSD only, co-occurring SSD with language impairment, and language impairment only by controlling age and percentage of consonants correct (PCC) as covariates. Four subgroups of SSD by linguistic symptomatology, articulation disorder, phonology delay, consistent phonological disorder, and inconsistent phonological disorder were examined for whether they show different performances in nonword repetition tasks. Results: Children with SSD only showed significantly higher performance compared with the other three groups including typically developing children after controlling for age and PCC. Children with co-occurring SSD with language impairment showed the lowest performance. Inconsistent phonological disorders showed a significantly lower percent correct nonword repetitions measured by phonemes than the other three subgroups of SSD classified by linguistic symptomatology. Conclusion: This study suggested that nonword repetition tasks could help us identify children with SSD with co-occurring language impairment or inconsistent phonological disorders who might have different underlying deficits on speech-language process from other subtypes of SSD.