Abstract
It is known that phonological information processing has a significant influence on the development of the ability to read words. We report the case of a 6-year-old boy who had difficulty reading words written in Japanese syllabic symbols (kana) and who read syllable by syllable. While conducting initial examinations, we thought he had a delay in acquiring written language due to delayed language development. He was able to read individual kana aloud except for one particular kana, but he was only able to perform kana-by-kana reading and could not read whole words fluently. He also had difficulty understanding the meaning of words.
Cognitive and spoken language development of the patient was evaluated by both intelligence tests and cognitive psychological tests. His performance IQ was within the normal range. However, his verbal IQ was in the lower boundary region, and his vocabulary was below the range for his age. Therefore, he was considered to have a specific language impairment. Cognitive development test results suggested that he had a phonological processing skills disability. Specifically, he had a mora segmentation problem, short-term verbal memory deficits, and reading disability due to a lack of vocabulary. We believe this led to his oral reading deficit.
