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reading trouble v speech

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

Just a question.

My daughter is in LMB and doing great; however, multisyllabic words are still troublesome. She also has trouble pronouncing mutlisyllabic words (egophasus in lieu of esophagus) and can’t say multiplication, biography, organization, etc. (No real speech problems other than mutisyllabic and yogret for yogurt, bisquetti for spaghetti. Most people don’t even notice it.

It JUST occurred to me (sometimes I think I’m the slow processor) that possibly there’s a speech component to the reading problem. (She’s pretty good at the nonsense words in LMB), i.e., if you can’s say it, wouldn’t it be hard to read it ???

Just wondering. Sometimes I feel like a private detective. We are having a private speech evaluation done.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 09/04/2002 - 4:00 PM

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I sometimes have trouble pronouncing multisyllable words also. No real pattern but things that are not as common—one of my good friends name’s is Minakshi (from India). You should of heard of what I did with that for awhile.

I don’t have any trouble with the reading portion of it because I know what the words mean. But if I was in reading therapy and had to say it outloud, it would be problematic. So I would say, based on my own experiences, that certainly if you cannot pronounce a word correctly, you cannot read it outloud correctly. (It took me a long time to pronounce Yugoslavia correctly when I was in school, for example.) The extent to which this is disabling would depend on the extent to which you have trouble pronouncing words. If she generally has trouble with multisyllable words, then you may have your explanation. If she has queer problems, like mine, then probably not as likely. For me, it just takes more than typical exposure to a new multisyllable word to get the pronounciation.

Beth

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 09/04/2002 - 4:32 PM

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I have been told by people who work with my two boys that a speech/language disability puts the child at risk for a reading disorder. They explained that they do not always go hand in hand but it is something you should be on the look out for in a child with a language based disability. My oldest son is CAPD and I know for a fact this has an impact on his ability to read. His younger brother with PDD-NOS so definitely a language difficulty also learns to read at a slower pace. I would say it is a possiblitiy that a language disorder can interfere.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 09/04/2002 - 4:40 PM

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Many of my students that have reading difficulty also are active in Speech Therapy. Our team always looks at speech difficulty and how it effects students in the areas of reading and Language Arts. Many times,especially with younger children, Speech Therapy is the only thing a student needs without other Special Education. They are usually later dismissed from S/LP due to their success.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 09/04/2002 - 5:18 PM

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Sounds like she has a phonological/articulation disorder. She is doing some of the typical phonological developmental errors. How old is she? This can be rectified with speech therapy.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 09/04/2002 - 8:45 PM

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yes, she seems to transpose the sounds. Does the same with spelling. She’s global LD but significant language based. Speech was the most minor of problems when school began. Big problems with reading and writing. Currently attends LMB and OT and everything has improved 10 fold; however, she’s still struggling with the large multisyllabic words

She’s 9 - 10 in November. Is somewhat resistant to speech therapy. the mispronounciation doesn’t bother her, but I’m afraid she’ll be teased when she gets older. The older she gets, the more noticeable the problem, I think b/c her vocabulary is increasing.

So you think Speech would be a good thing?

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 09/04/2002 - 11:13 PM

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Keep working on the reading, and model sounding out words one syllable at a time, slowly. This can actually help speech, once she becomes good at sounding out for herself.

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 09/05/2002 - 3:39 AM

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I think we are approaching this from a little different perspective. Since most LD’s are language based, I can’t imagine NOT having speech/language therapy as the first service even before LD. My daughter also says pusketti, etc. But a lot of that stems from auditory processing problems…the expressive gets confused because the receptive is!

One question, since her LD is language based, did she ever have a full S/L evaluation? I would think she would have qualified if she qualified for LD. And usually (not always), the speech/language session has fewer children than a LD class would. My daughter has one-on-one S/L three to four times per week.(I realize you have obtained a lot of private therapy).

Janis

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 09/05/2002 - 6:00 AM

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That’s interesting that you’ve brought up this topic. I’ve also recently come to the conclusion that my son’s reading difficulties may have a speech/language component.

I had never previously thought of this because it wasn’t that obvious. I’d be interested to hear the results of your daughter’s speech eval.

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 09/05/2002 - 12:10 PM

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Laura,

It is pretty much known that most reading disorders have a language disorder as a basis. I think every child tested for LD reading should have a full S/L evaluation at the same time, if not earlier.

We noticed our child’s language was not right when she was very small, so we had her evaluated early. It turned out that she has an auditory processing disorder. I imagine there is a large percentage of LD children with this profile.

Janis

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 09/05/2002 - 2:00 PM

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I agree with Janis any child with an identified LD should have a language evaluation but this does not always happen. My oldest son is a good example. He stuggled in school starting in pre-school. His first evaluation was started in 1st grade but discontinued due to a PCS move. His new school did not notice difficulties with him until 3rd grade and again an evaluation was asked for—but he was evaluated for ADHD and did not receive a language eval. At the same time my youngest son was being evaluated for Autism, so I did not put as much energy into the oldest sons eval as I should have. His problems seemed so minor campared to his brothers. The oldest did not receive a language evaluation until 6th grade. It was requested because at the age of 12 he could not ask a question, answered questions with irrelevant information, had difficulty following directions, was a poor reader and a poor speller. His language evaluation found him with skills ranging from the 1st to the 17th percentile. As I look back on it I had always thought his speech to be poor but like I said with his brothers difficulties my mind was else where. By all means a language evaluation is in order.

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 09/05/2002 - 8:54 PM

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You know, Lisa, you are very right that many children who need a language evaluation never are referred for one. And of course, most parents would assume the school would refer if there was a significant problem. But I think it is due to ignorance of teachers mostly. I am very sure that my child’s teachers would not have referred her even up to the present time. They are just not in tune with language deficits that may be scattered (or mild) rather than across the board. After all, they are mostly trying to keep kids quiet all day!

I feel early intervention is so important, that I believe all kindergarteners should be screened by the end of the year for language (including phonemic awareness) delays. Then those who need a full eval can be taken care of early. I honestly feel we’d have fewer kids ever needing an LD label if we’d go ahead and identify the language based disabilites and treat them early. My greatest hope is that the IDEA revisions will allow for earlier intervention.

Janis

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 09/05/2002 - 11:04 PM

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She’s never had a S/L evaluation. She gets along great, makes A’s, etc., but I’ve noticed articulation seems to be getting worse - again, I think it’s b/c of the larger vocabulary expected.. Her evaluator (for LD) said she believes that b/c other things are improving so much, that the speech is becoming more apparent.

I have talked with a SLP who is going to evaluate her, but is looking for “just the right tests” b/c she wants something that will flush out her deficits (she’s really good at compensation).

Honestly, talking has always been one of her strengths (or so I thought). She has significant delays in both auditory and visual processing.

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 09/06/2002 - 8:11 AM

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and while you are at it have some testing on auditory processing done, and if it shows she needs speech therapy it can be a good thing.

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 09/06/2002 - 8:24 PM

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We already know she has “significant” auditory processing delays. In fact, she’s got deficits across the board, but compensates well. Her reading, spelling, writing have just blossomed, so now we work on the speech….

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