Phonological awareness deficits in Arabic-speaking children with learning disabilities

Abstract Background: Phonological awareness refers to the language ability to perceive and manipulate the sounds of spoken words. It is an understanding of the structure of spoken language — that it is made up of words, and that words consist of syllables, rhymes, and sounds. The presence of a relationship between performance in phonological awareness tasks and reading ability is undisputed. Materials and methods: 100 normal children together with 30 learning -disabled children were evaluated with the Arabic phonological awareness test to detect their performance on phonological awareness. Results: A large amount of evidence has been accumulated to show that the more knowledge children have about the constituent sounds of words, the better they tend to be at reading. Aim: Many studies have been conducted to detect phonological awareness deficits in English-speaking children, but very few studies have been conducted on Arabic-speaking children. © 2015, The Egyptian Oto - Rhino - Laryngological Society.