Expressive versus receptive language skills in specific reading disorder

Abstract

Despite ample research into the language skills of children with specific reading disorder no studies so far have investigated whether there may be a difference between expressive and receptive language skills in this population. Yet, neuro‐anatomical models would predict that children who have specific reading disorder which is not associated with movement or attention difficulties, would have lower receptive language skills than expressive. This study investigates the difference between expressive and receptive language skills in a sample of 17 children with specific reading difficulty aged between 7 and 12 years. They were administered a battery of two receptive and two expressive language measures. The results showed that as the neuro‐anatomical model would predict, the children scored significantly lower on tests of receptive than on tests of expressive language skills.

• Specific reading disorder
• expressive language
• receptive language