| The purpose of this thesis was to characterize the oral and written language abilities of grade two children whose speech and language skills were assessed during their preschool years. The study compared these abilities through the administration of standardized assessment tools, including articulation, syntactic, semantic, metalinguistic, reading and spelling tests.;Specific research goals included building a profile of each child based on the longitudinal data in order to chart particular developments across time, as well as to uncover possible oral language precursors to written language difficulties.;Through the above research, it was found that the children assessed exhibited oral and/or written language difficulties during grade 2 and that their speech/language profiles changed significantly over time. The most significant oral language factors associated with grade 2 written language scores were found to be metalinguistic (including phonological awareness) and semantic language scores. Educational significance of the above findings is discussed. |
