発達性読み書き障がい周辺児に関する言語能力特性の検討

抄録

There are essentially two screening techniques for identifying children with developmental dyslexia (DD): either teacher assessment or STRAW: Screening Test of Reading And Writing for Japanese Primary School Children. Some studies indicate that children are more likely to be identified has having DD when assessed by teacher assessments than when assessed by STRAW (Kabutomori & Takeda, 2008; Yaguchi, Kotaka, & Fukuda, 2010). Within the present study, we define children suspected of having DD based only on teacher assessments as a “peripheral DD group” and examine their verbal abilities. The participants were elementary school children at first, third, and fifth grades. They were classified into three groups: a “normal group” having above standard values for both assessments, a “peripheral DD group” having below standard values only according to teacher assessments, and a “DD group” being below standards for both assessments. To investigate the verbal abilities of the participants, three tests were conducted; namely, the SCTAW (Standardized Comprehension Test of Abstract Words) as a vocabulary test, the Kyouken-shiki Reading-Test involving a grammar test, and a comprehension test. The results of a 3×3 (grade×group) ANOVA revealed that performances for the peripheral DD group were as high as the performances of the normal group on both the vocabulary test and the comprehension test. However, on the grammar test, the scores for the peripheral DD group were similar to those of the DD group and were significantly lower than the normal group. These results suggest that the children in the peripheral DD group require support in developing their grammatical abilities.