Children with phonological impairments versus children with normal phonological development: Do they differ on rhyming ability

The purpose of this research was to determine if there was a significant difference between pre-school children with phonological impairments and pre-school children with normal phonological development on rhyming ability. Pre-school children with phonological impairments scored significantly lower than normally developing peers on tasks of rhyme formulation and rhyme detection. Performance on the rhyme detection task decreased as the severity of the phonological impairment increased. Further, performance on the rhyme detection task increased with age for the children with normal phonological development. Based on the type answers provided by each child, the examiner was able to speculate about his/her understanding of the rhyming concept when administering the rhyme formulation task. Children with phonological impairments did not benefit from phonemic cueing and often provided semantically related answers rather than rhyming words.