Longitudinal determinants of reading and writing abilities in late primary school in children with developmental language disorder

PURPOSE: This study examines the contribution of a set of cognitive and linguistic variables as longitudinal predictors of reading (decoding and comprehension) and writing (spelling and text generation) in children with developmental language disorder two years later. METHOD: A two-wave longitudinal study was conducted with 58 Catalan-Spanish bilingual children, including 31 with developmental language disorder and 27 with typical language development. At Time 1, participants were assessed in oral language and cognitive abilities. At Time 2, two years later, their reading and writing skills were evaluated. RESULT: Children with typical development significantly outperformed those with developmental lanugage disorder in decoding, reading comprehension, spelling, and text generation. In the developmental language disorder group, phonological awareness and expressive vocabulary predicted decoding; while phonological awareness, concepts and the ability to follow directions, predicted reading comprehension. Additionally, nonword repetition and phonological awareness predicted spelling, whereas nonword repetition and word association predicted text generation. CONCLUSION: The findings highlight that oral language difficulties in children with developmental language disorder impact reading and writing development. Phonological awareness plays a crucial role in literacy beyond pre-school, emphasising the need for interventions that strengthen these skills.