Could Being Sent to the “Speech Teacher” Be a Red Flag for Dyslexia?
Early Signs – Long before we found out our daughter was dyslexic, we knew she had what we thought was an adorable way of speaking. Around ages 5 to 7, Her “th” sounded like “ffff”, her “ch” sounded like “sh” and she said “callerpillar” and other “cute” pronunciations. We were not worried. Lots of kids have trouble with these sounds early on.
She was a chatterbox – bright and sweet, full of amazing, creative ideas. Sometimes the ideas flowed so fast, she would get stuck on a word, stammer, forget what she was saying or miss a word. She had a habit of starting nearly every sentence with “Do you know something?” When peers and teachers complained that she began everything with a question, she started beginning all her sentences with “Something is…”. (She never grew out of this by the way). Her stories were long, started in the middle and were difficult to follow – “He took it and now, the thing is, we are all pretty happy about that. Something is, the teacher said so.” She had a hard time recalling and retelling stories we read together or remembering two and three step directions.
Heads Up at School – Still, we were surprised, maybe even a little offended, when her second-grade teacher referred her for speech therapy. But the teacher was onto something that would take us, her parents, another year to figure out. Our daughter’s speech and language issues were warning signs that when combined with her increasing reading and spelling issues and a family history of academic struggles by her dad should have alerted us and her teachers to her dyslexia.
A Lost Year – Instead, we all focused on “correcting” her articulation defects and made not even a little bit of progress for the whole next year when we should have been addressing her dyslexia. That was valuable time lost. The research clearly shows that early intervention in kindergarten and first grade is the most effective way to address reading and spelling issues in dyslexic kids. A year is a big deal.
The Key to Success – Once our daughter’s dyslexia was identified and a solid program of remediation was in place (for her it was the Wilson Reading System, five days a week, 50 minutes/day), a speech and language professional was able to successfully work with her to make great progress on her speech and language issues. It was crucial, however, for her to do the work to understand the sounds that make up words (if you can’t distinguish sounds, saying them clearly can be tough!).
Not every child with speech and language issues is dyslexic. Not every child who is dyslexic has speech and language issues. But the overlap is significant. Here’s what you should know:
Dyslexia is an inherited condition that most researchers agree affects the way the brain processes language sounds (phonological processing). For example, the word “cat” has three sounds (/c/, /a/, /t/). The word “scram” has five sounds. A person who is unable to “pull apart” words into their individual sounds has weak phonological processing and will have a lot of trouble reading and spelling.
When dyslexia and speech/language problems happen in the same child, the speech and language problems often happen BEFORE reading and spelling problems, providing a chance for effective, early intervention.
Speech-Language Pathologists (aka Speech-Language Therapists or “The Speech Teacher”) specialize in the treatment of speech disorders AND language disorders. Speech is different from language. A good SLP will notice if your child has trouble processing language sounds (phonological processing) – this is a strong signal for dyslexia.
Poor verbal vocabulary and poor use of grammar in the preschool years are warning signs of dyslexia in children who have a family history of dyslexia (Adlof and Hogan, 2018).
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), also known as Specific Language Impairment (SLI), is a very common language disorder in children that co-occurs with dyslexia. It is a disorder of spoken language with a variety of symptoms. In one study, 55% of children with dyslexia also met criteria for DLD and 51% of children with DLD met criteria for dyslexia (McArthur et al., 2000). If your child has a diagnosis of DLD, definitely ask about the possibility of dyslexia and if you are told it’s “too early” to know, find someone more knowledgeable in the field. Screening for dyslexia risk and strengthening of phonological skills can and should be done as young as preschool!
How to spot a speech and language problem (age 5 and after). Remember, lots of these things may be NORMAL if they happen for a short while and/or infrequently. You should look for persistent patterns that seem unusual to you:
Is your child’s speech difficult for others to understand?
Are they leaving out sounds in a word? For example, “ca” for “catch”
Do their speech sound problems affect their spelling? “umbella” for “umbrella”
Do they pronounce words “out of order”? “Menelie” for “Melanie”; “baspgetti” for “spaghetti”
Do they pronounce words just fine but their sentences are hard to understand or their vocabulary is lacking? Phrasing is off, pace is jerky?
Do they get “tip of the tongue” syndrome – just can’t remember the word, gets stuck, can describe what they mean but can’t come up with it?
Does your child have a persistent stammer? This can be a normal developmental phase but it also can be associated with phonological processing difficulties.
Does your child have unusual pitch or sound while speaking? (Snowling and Stackhouse, 2006)
Want to know “what’s normal”? Check out these language development milestones and this great milestone app from the CDC.
Keep in mind that speech and language problems don’t only happen alongside dyslexia. Many other conditions (for example – ADHD, autism, hearing impairment, intellectual disability) or none at all may be associated with a trip to the speech room.
