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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Communication Disorders

Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent

reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with
Specific Language Impairment (SLI)
Eva Aguilar-Mediavilla a,*, Lucı́a Buil-Legaz a, Josep A. Pérez-Castelló a,
Eduard Rigo-Carratalà a, Daniel Adrover-Roig b
a
University of the Balearic Islands, Ed. Beatriu de Pinós, Cra. Valldemossa, km. 7.5, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain
b
University of the Balearic Islands, Ed. Guillem Cifre de Colonya, Cra. Valldemossa, km. 7.5, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have severe language difficulties
Received 26 September 2012 without showing hearing impairments, cognitive deficits, neurological damage or socio-
Received in revised form 24 March 2014 emotional deprivation. However, previous studies have shown that children with SLI show
Accepted 30 March 2014
some cognitive and literacy problems. Our study analyses the relationship between
Available online xxx
preschool cognitive and linguistic abilities and the later development of reading abilities in
Spanish–Catalan bilingual children with SLI. The sample consisted of 17 bilingual Spanish–
Keywords:
Catalan children with SLI and 17 age-matched controls. We tested eight distinct processes
Specific Language Impairment (SLI)
Bilingual related to phonological, attention, and language processing at the age of 6 years and
Reading reading at 8 years of age.
Phonological working memory Results show that bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI show significantly lower
Phonological awareness scores, as compared to typically developing peers, in phonological awareness,
Rapid automatized naming (RAN) phonological memory, and rapid automatized naming (RAN), together with a lower
outcome in tasks measuring sentence repetition and verbal fluency. Regarding attentional
processes, bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI obtained lower scores in auditory
attention, but not in visual attention. At the age of 8 years Spanish–Catalan children with
SLI had lower scores than their age-matched controls in total reading score, letter
identification (decoding), and in semantic task (comprehension). Regression analyses
identified both phonological awareness and verbal fluency at the age of 6 years to be the
best predictors of subsequent reading performance at the age of 8 years. Our data suggest
that language acquisition problems and difficulties in reading acquisition in bilingual
children with SLI might be related to the close interdependence between a limitation in
cognitive processing and a deficit at the linguistic level.
Learning outcomes: Readers will increase their understanding about the relation
between language difficulties and reading outcomes, and they will learn how processing
abilities influences reading performance in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with
Specific Language Impairment. The present work discusses the relation between language
and reading through a developmental model in which the role of the phonological system
is considered as a central component for the development of decoding abilities and text
comprehension capacities.
ß 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 971172566; fax: +34 971173190.

E-mail addresses: eva.aguilar@uib.es, aguilarmediavilla@gmail.com (E. Aguilar-Mediavilla), lucia.buil@uib.es (L. Buil-Legaz),
pep.perez@uib.es (J.A. Pérez-Castelló), e.rigo@uib.es (E. Rigo-Carratalà), daniel.adrover@uib.es (D. Adrover-Roig).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
0021-9924/ß 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
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1. Introduction

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between preschool processing abilities and the later development of
reading outcomes in a sample of bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with and without SLI. For this purpose, a set of
phonological (phonological memory, phonological awareness, and rapid automatic naming), attentional (auditory and
visual), and linguistic variables (lexical comprehension, verbal fluency and sentence repetition) were compared between
both groups of children, and the relative contribution of these variables to the later development of reading was evaluated
through a regression model.
Language of children with SLI is characterised by a chronological delay of one or more years and a substantial limitation in
acquiring language structures. This delay is not related to the factors that usually explain problems in language learning,
such as hearing impairment, low IQ, detectable neurological damage, or partner-emotional problems (American Psychiatric
Association, 2013; Leonard, 1998; Stark & Tallal, 1981; Tomblin, Freese, & Records, 1992; Tomblin, Smith, & Zhang, 1997).
Besides these common underlying factors, crosslinguistic studies (see Leonard, 1998) have shown that the linguistic profiles
of children with SLI vary according to the specificities of a particular language. Moreover, this logic also applies to typical
bilingual language development, given that monolingual and bilingual children show differences and similarities in
language acquisition, also depending on the languages considered (Genesee & Nicoladis, 2006). In light of these results, the
specific characteristics of cognitive and language development should be explored in bilingual children with SLI, as it is the
case in the present study. However, very few studies have described the linguistic outcomes in bilingual children with SLI,
and even fewer have explored the cognitive and linguistic characteristics of bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI,
which is probably related to the difficulty to find enough children that meet all inclusion criteria. One finding that seems to
be consistent across studies is that bilingual children with SLI manifest their linguistic deficits in both languages in such a
way that both languages are learned at a much slower rate than in their age-matched bilingual peers (Hakansson, Salameh, &
Nettelbladt, 2003). Focusing on language characteristics in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI, our previous studies
have shown several problems at the linguistic level, such as omissions in function words, errors in inflected morphology,
poor syntactic structure (Aguilar-Mediavilla, Sanz-Torrent, & Serra-Raventós, 2007; Serra-Raventós, 2002; Serra-Raventós,
Aguilar-Mediavilla, & Sanz-Torrent, 2002), omissions of weak syllables and reductions of syllabic shapes (Aguilar-Mediavilla,
Sanz-Torrent, & Serra-Raventós, 2002; Aguilar-Mediavilla & Serra-Raventós, 2006). Additionally, errors in verbs, difficulties
in lexical access and poor coherence have also been reported (Sanz-Torrent, Serrat, Andreu, & Serra-Raventós, 2008). With
respect to the written modality, there is still a lack of studies with bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI. In other
languages, different from Spanish and Catalan, most children with SLI display difficulties in learning to read and write during
school age and adolescent years (Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 2001; Catts, 1993; Nippold & Schwarz, 2002). For instance,
Tomblin, Zhang, Buckwalter, & Catts (2000) found that 46% of the children with SLI showed reading-accuracy difficulties (i.e.
ability to accurately pronounce printed English words and non-words), and 52% showed reading comprehension difficulties.
However, the preschool processing capacities that might underlie language difficulties have to be taken into account, which
is one of the main goals of the present study. In this sense, the few existing studies conducted with bilingual children with SLI
who had Spanish as one of their languages have reported a deficit in phonological working memory (Girbau & Schwartz,
2008) and in processing auditory and visual information (Pons, Andreu, Sanz-Torrent, Buil-Legaz, & Lewkowicz, 2012).
Meanwhile, studies that have explored the processing deficits in monolingual children with SLI are more abundant. These
studies have shown that children with SLI have deficits in phonological processing (Goulandris, Snowling, & Walker, 2000),
phonological memory (Girbau & Schwartz, 2007; Montgomery, 2003), rapid automatised naming (RAN) (Vandewalle, Boets,
Ghesquière, & Zink, 2010), auditory attention (Aguado, Cuetos-Vega, Domezáin, & Pascual, 2006; Buiza-Navarrete, Adrián-
Torres, & González-Sánchez, 2007; Montgomery, Evans, & Gillam, 2009), executive functioning (Henry, Messer, & Nash,
2012; Marton, 2008) and language processing (see Leonard, 1998 or Mendoza, 2012, for a review).
Most of these observed deficits in children with SLI are difficult to constrain to a specific difficulty in the linguistic domain
(Gopnik & Crago, 1991). An alternative account considers that language problems in children with SLI are due to a more
generalised limitation in several cognitive capacities, such as perception, memory, auditory processing, or general
information processing (see Bishop, 1992; Leonard, 1998; Miller, 2011 for a review). Following this account, the limited
processing capacity hypothesis (Leonard, 1998) would include processing capacities at the linguistic and non-linguistic
levels as the underlying factors that are causing linguistic deficits in children with SLI. Thus, children with SLI would show
difficulties in the capacities that are necessary to understand and produce words, sentences or narrations (e.g. working
memory, in addition to rapid stimulus perception). This general deficit could be due to a slow processing of information
(Hayiou-Thomas, Bishop, & Plunkett, 2004), to a reduced general capacity (Leonard, 1998; Miller, Kail, Leonard, & Tomblin,
2001), or both (Leonard et al., 2007).
Following this hypothesis, the relationship between the processing deficits, language production problems and literacy
difficulties in children with SLI is hard to disentangle. A Development Causal Model that takes into account the mutual
interdependence between cognitive and linguistic deficits may shed some light to this issue (Morton & Frith, 2001;
Scarborough, 2009) (see Fig. 1). According to this model, reading difficulties in children with SLI might be considered as an
extension of their previously existing language problems. Thus, their language profiles would change with the acquisition of
new skills, while previous abilities would remain underdeveloped. Hence, children with SLI might show different patterns of
difficulty at distinct developmental stages. These difficulties might not only be caused by a common factor affecting the

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
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[(Fig._1)TD$IG] E. Aguilar-Mediavilla et al. / Journal of Communication Disorders xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 3

Fig. 1. Developmental causal model.

Adapted from Morton and Frith (2001) and Scarborough (2009).

whole acquisition process, but also might arise from a causal influence of previous problems (e.g. poor lexical knowledge)
that would have an impact on subsequent acquisitions (e.g. reading comprehension).
Consequently, current research on SLI addressing the relationship of a linguistic deficit with a limited processing capacity
is becoming a growing focus of interest. However, studies on the association between the difficulties at the cognitive and the
linguistic levels in bilingual children with SLI and in other languages different than English are still few. Therefore, we aimed
at exploring the underlying processing abilities in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI, which might in turn help to
better disentangle their language problems. In this vein, there are at least four important issues to be addressed, which are
related to the aim of the present study.
The first issue concerns the need for more studies that address the type of reading difficulties of children with SLI, as
contradictory results have often been found, especially in reading accuracy and comprehension (St. Clair, Durkin, Conti-
Ramsden, & Pickles, 2010). With regard to the studies that have assessed reading outcomes in English-speaking children with
SLI, Bishop and Adams (1990) reported lower scores in children with SLI in reading comprehension than typically developing
children, meanwhile reading accuracy scores were equivalent between both groups. However, other studies (St. Clair et al.,
2010; Stothard, Snowling, Bishop, Chipchase, & Kaplan, 1998; Tomblin et al., 2000) have reported children with SLI to display
difficulties in reading accuracy, reading comprehension and spelling, especially during adolescence. In conclusion, most of
previous studies have shown that English-speaking children with SLI present difficulties in comprehension and in reading
accuracy. However, English has a deeper orthography (low relationship between spelling and sound) than Catalan and
Spanish (Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003). Therefore, in the present study comprehension and accuracy scores in reading will
be explored in children with SLI learning a more transparent language than English.
Following this rationale, the second point that needs further clarification concerns the fact that most of the existing
studies are based on the English language, and most studies have been carried out in monolingual learners. We think this
factor is important, because prior studies have suggested that the orthography depth of a language, which refers to the
degree of correspondence between graphemes and phonemes, affects the reading capacity and the cognitive skills needed to
develop it (Caravolas & Bruck, 1993; Caravolas et al., 2012). To our knowledge, there are no previous studies on the reading
capacities in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI. To date, the few studies conducted in monolingual children with
SLI with other languages than English have reported that children with SLI show reading difficulties even in other more
transparent languages than English. For instance, children with SLI show reading difficulties in Dutch, a more transparent
language than English but less than Catalan and Spanish (Vandewalle, Boets, Ghesquiere, & Zink, 2012), in French, a Romance
language also less transparent than Spanish and Catalan (Zourou, Ecalle, Magnan, & Sanchez, 2010), and in Italian, the most
similar language to Catalan and Spanish in terms of transparency (Brizzolara et al., 2006, 2011).
The third issue that needs to be refined concerns the evidence regarding which processing abilities facilitate or hinder
reading acquisition in children with SLI. The identification of these processing abilities might help to predict which children
are going to have difficulties in reading acquisition and becomes thus a fundamental step to prevent problems that could
jeopardise school learning (Conti-Ramsden, Durkin, Simkin, & Knox, 2010; Young et al., 2002). Prior studies have identified
different processes that contribute to reading acquisition in several languages. For instance, phonological awareness is one of
the processing abilities that predicts reading capacities in children with SLI learning English (Catts et al., 2001), French
(Zourou et al., 2010) and Italian (Brizzolara et al., 2006), but not Dutch (Vandewalle et al., 2012). In Dutch, RAN was the best
predictor of reading outcomes. This variable was also found to be a predictor of reading in children with SLI speaking English
(Catts et al., 2001). Other processing abilities at kindergarten that have shown to have a predictive power in explaining
reading capacities in children with SLI are letter identification, sentence imitation and mother’s education in English (Catts
et al., 2001), whereas phonological working memory, morphosyntactic and lexical abilities are good regressors of reading

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
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outcomes in Italian (Brizzolara et al., 2006, 2011). As we have pointed, there is a lack of studies with either Spanish, Catalan
nor with bilingual children with SLI that have explored the relationship between preschool processing abilities and reading
outcomes at school ages, and this aspect is one of the main goals in the present study.
The fourth and last issue refers to the fact that some of the results across studies comparing language use in bilingual and
monolingual children with SLI are contradictory. Although some studies have reported an equal or even a better language
performance in bilingual children with SLI than in monolingual children with SLI (Gutiérrez-Clellen, Simon-Cereijido, &
Wagner, 2008; Paradis, Crago, Genesee, & Rice, 2003; Windsor & Kohnert, 2009), others have found lower linguistic
outcomes in bilingual children with SLI as compared to monolingual children with SLI (Orgassa & Weerman, 2008; Westman,
Korkman, Mickos, & Byring, 2008). An explanation that is considered for the similar scores found between bilingual and
monolingual children with SLI concerns the so-called ‘bilingual advantage’. In recent years, several studies have shown that
bilingual children develop their executive processes earlier, at 3 years of age, as compared to monolingual children, for
whom this maturation takes place between 4 and 5 years of age (Bialystok, 1999, 2005). These results have been attributed to
their experience in managing two languages in constant competition (Green, 1998). Therefore, it can be argued that the
similar linguistic scores displayed by bilingual children with SLI as compared to monolingual children with SLI are a
consequence of the better executive capacity and the larger metacognitive skills of bilinguals, which might allow them to
compensate for their difficulties in acquiring two languages. Previous studies have shown that bilingual children with SLI
display similar results in processing abilities than monolingual children with SLI (Kohnert, 2010; Kohnert, Windsor, & Pham,
2009) being their processing difficulties related to their language impairment and not with bilingualism (Elin Thordardottir
& Brandeker, 2013). These similar results between bilingual and monolingual children with SLI could be interpreted in the
line of the ‘‘bilingual advantage’’ hypothesis. However, to attribute the lack of differences between bilinguals with SLI and
monolinguals with SLI to a purported bilingual advantge might be controversial. There is a growing body of studies that have
failed to find a cognitive advantage for bilinguals, as compared to monolinguals (for instance, see Costa, Hernández, Costa-
Faidella, & Sebastián-Gallés, 2009; Duñabeitia et al., 2013; Namazi & Elin Thordardottir, 2010). For this reason, whether
bilingual children with SLI are capable of overcoming their linguistic difficulties by deploying more efficient executive
resources is still a matter of debate. Although the present study will not add further evidence for this specific debate, our
research involves a first step that might add valuable information regarding the cognitive and linguistic characteristics of
bilingual children with SLI.
The current study therefore aimed to compare a set of variables measuring phonological processing, attention and
language abilities in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI at the age of 6 years with those of a group comprised of age-
matched bilingual controls. These variables were also considered as potential predictors of reading abilities at 8 years of age.
For this general goal, we posit the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1. If SLI is characterised by an early processing deficit that affects language acquisition, the abilities that are
related with language production should be impaired in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI as compared to their
typically developing bilingual peers. In this sense, we predict lower outcomes in children with SLI in tasks loading on
phonological processing, auditory attention and language processing. However, we expect similar scores between both
groups on tasks that are purportedly not crucial for language production, such as visual attention.

Hypothesis 2. Considering that the early linguistic and cognitive processes that are involved in the development of reading
capacity might be impaired in bilingual children with SLI, we expect reading scores (accuracy and comprehension) of
bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI to be lower than those of typically developing bilingual children.

Hypothesis 3. Given that the existing body of literature has identified phonological awareness as a core capacity for
subsequent reading acquisition, we expect the regression model to identify this variable as an early predictor of reading
outcome at the age of 8 years even in a transparent language such as Catalan. However, other processes might also account
for a substantial proportion of reading performance, because phonological awareness might be less important for reading in
transparent languages as compared to deep languages.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

The present study included two groups. The study group was comprised of 17 Spanish–Catalan bilingual children with
SLI, six females and 11 males, with a mean age of 6.2 years at the beginning of the study and 8.0 years at the end of the study
(SD = 0.3 years each group). Children with SLI were paired with 17 age-matched controls, who were also Spanish–Catalan
bilinguals with a mean age of 6.4 years at the beginning of the study and 8.2 years at the end of the study (SD = 0.2 years each
group). All children took part in a longitudinal project conducted in the Balearic Islands (see Section 2.3, for a more complete
explanation of the participants’ language characteristics).
All children that fulfilled the established criteria for diagnosing children with SLI (Stark & Tallal, 1981; Tomblin, Smith,
et al., 1997; Tomblin, Records, et al., 1997) were initially selected from all schools of the island of Majorca. All schools from
Majorca sent us a brief profile of their pupils at third year of kindergarten (5 years of age) showing language problems and

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
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Table 1
Demographic and linguistic data.

SLI Age controls

N 17 17
Gender
Male 11 11
Female 6 6
SES
Low 6 4
Medium 11 13
Instruction language
Catalan 17 17
Dominant language at 5.6
Catalan 8 8
Spanish 9 9
Language response at 6 (NEPSY)
Catalan 3 8
Spanish 8 7
Both languages 6 2
Language preference at 8
Catalan 5 8
Spanish 7 7
No language preference 5 2
Family language
Catalan 5 8
Spanish 12 9
Parental involvement in educationa Mdn = 3 Mdn = 4
Age T1 M = 6.2, SD = 0.3 M = 6.4, SD = 0.2
Age T2 M = 8.0, SD = 0.3 M = 8.2, SD = 0.2
Percentile language at 5.6 (PLON-R) M = 26.6, SD = 11.6 M = 56.6, SD = 20.8
Nonverbal-IQ (WPPSI) M = 101.8, SD = 10.3 M = 110.2, SD = 11.4

M, mean; Mdn, median; SD, standard deviation; SES, socioeconomic status; T1, mean age at first assessment; T2, mean age at
second assessment; PLON-R, Navarra Oral Language Test-Revised; WPPSI, Weschler Preschool and Primary Scale of
Intelligence.
a
Likert scale with 5 items from little to a lot of involvement.

without having a history of cognitive, auditory and social difficulties or neurological damage. All children had already
completed the two previous years of kindergarten, as children in Spain begin school at the age of 3 years. For the initial
sample, we also considered other exclusion criteria, such as only presenting with articulatory problems and/or being newly
arrived from a non-Catalan speaking community, in order to avoid the sample to include sequential second language
learners. Therefore, we pre-selected those children who presented with only language problems and not other potential
associated difficulties.
Then, we assessed their language profiles (phonology, morphosyntax, lexicon and pragmatics) using the PLON-R: Navarra
Oral Language Test-Revised (PLON-R: Prueba del Lenguaje Oral de Navarra Revisada; Aguinaga, Armentia, Fraile, Olangua, &
Útiz, 2004). Non-verbal IQ was measured by means of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI;
Wechsler & de la Cruz, 2001). Neurological, social and emotional data were obtained from speech therapists at school. We
also requested their records related to audition to the Balearic Ministry of Health. This institution conducts an Otoacoustic
Emissions (OAE) analysis to all children in Majorca and an audiometric test to those children that fail the OAE at the age of 6
years. Thus, the study group was comprised of children born in Majorca who showed language problems with an IQ higher
than 85, and no evidence of auditory, social, emotional or neurological problems (see Table 1 for demographic and linguistic
data of the sample).
The comparison group was comprised of children without language problems going to the same classrooms and having
the same gender, age, and dominant language as the children with SLI. Thus, each participant with SLI was paired with a
control child in terms of gender, age and dominant language. Language, intelligence, auditory, social, emotional, and
neurological variables were also recorded for the control group (see Table 1 for a demographic and linguistic description of
the control group).
Participants were all bilingual Spanish–Catalan, and their language of instruction at school was Catalan (see Section 2.3
for a more detailed explanation).
All participants were followed over three years until they reached the age of 8 years.

2.2. Material and procedure

A group of trained undergraduate students administered all tasks at the children’s schools. These examiners were also
Spanish–Catalan bilinguals and did not know whether the participants belonged to the study group or to the control group.
Every examiner assessed a child with SLI and his/her paired control, in order to minimise differences between examiners. All

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
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the tasks began with an explanation, followed by one or two example items, in order to make sure that the child had fully
understood the task.
Task testing was videotaped with a SONY FS100 digital camera and an electret condenser microphone (sensitivity:
65  3 db) in order to be subsequently scored by an experienced researcher.
In order to assess several cognitive and linguistic abilities, we selected eight tasks from the Spanish adaptation by Aguilar-
Alonso and Moreno-González (2012) of NEPSY (Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment; Korkman, Kirk, & Kemp,
1998). We selected tasks that measured phonological processing (phonological awareness, phonological memory and RAN);
attention (visual and auditory); and tasks that were devoted to assessing language processing (comprehension of verbal
commands, sentence repetition and verbal fluency). All NEPSY tasks were tested in Spanish at the age of 6 years (see
Appendix A for a brief summary of the tasks and an example of each).
We assessed reading outcomes two years later (at the age of 8 years) with the Catalan adaptation of the PROLEC
(Assessment Battery for Reading Processes; PROLEC: Baterı́a de Evaluación de los Procesos Lectores; Cuetos, Rodrı́guez, &
Ruano, 1996), as this was the language of reading instruction for all the children. The PROLEC included ten tasks,
corresponding to four different processes: name the letters and same or different (letter identification), lexical decision,
word reading, non-word reading, word and non-word reading (lexical processes), grammatical structures, punctuation
marks and sentence comprehension (syntactic processes), and text comprehension (semantic processes). A global index of
reading can be derived from the administration of the PROLEC. Appendix B provides a summary of the PROLEC tasks
including an example of each.

2.3. Language of participants and language assessment

All native children in Majorca are Spanish–Catalan simultaneous bilinguals and experience a similar amount of exposure
to both languages. For instance, schooling begins at 3 years of age, and the language used at school is Catalan. Catalan is also a
language used in children’s usual contexts. In addition, Spanish is a language that is present in most of the contexts in which
children are involved or exposed to (for example TV); thereby all children learn both languages at a very early age (before 3
years). Therefore, our participants can be all considered as simultaneous Spanish–Catalan bilinguals (see Table 1). Moreover,
bilingualism in Majorca is common, and both languages have a high degree of similarity. Thus, it is usual for adults to switch
from one language to the other during a conversation. In very small children, it is also very usual to observe language mixing
with the same person and/or in the same communicative setting.
As we have previously stated, each child with SLI was paired with a control child matched by age and dominant language,
according to the information provided by their school speech-therapists at the age of 5.6 years. The linguistic profile of each
child was obtained in the dominant language by means of the PLON-R (Aguinaga et al., 2004).
Prior to the tasks administered at the age of 8 years, all children were allowed to choose the language to be used during
the testing session. Eight children from the control group chose Catalan, seven chose Spanish and two showed no language
preference. In the SLI group, five children chose Catalan, seven chose Spanish and five showed no language preference. With
regard to the family language, eight children in the control group mainly spoke Catalan at home and nine spoke Spanish. In
the group of children with SLI, five children mainly used Catalan at home, and twelve used Spanish.
With respect to the language of assessment, the NEPSY was administered mainly in Spanish. However, for the subtests
that need a linguistic verbal answer (RAN, sentence repetition and verbal fluency) we allowed the children to choose the
language of response. In so doing, eight children from the control group answered in Catalan, seven answered in Spanish and
two responded in both languages. In the SLI group, three children answered in Catalan, eight in Spanish and six did so in both
languages.
The PROLEC was entirely administered in Catalan, as this was the language of reading instruction for all the children.
Nonetheless, some children answered by using both languages (for a general description of the Catalan alphabet, see
Appendix C).

3. Results

3.1. Independent sample comparisons between groups

In order to test hypotheses 1 and 2, independent sample comparisons were carried out between the group of Spanish–
Catalan children with SLI and the control group. We used non-parametric tests, because each group included less than 30
participants. Because of the high number of a priori planned comparisons, the Bonferroni correction was applied, thus
allowing us to reduce Type I error. Following our hypotheses, the Bonferroni correction was applied separately for
phonological, attention, language, and reading processes as each of them was linked to a different subset of hypothesis. This
procedure resulted in a cut-off criterion for significance at .017, .025, .017 and .013 for measures of phonological processes
(three planned comparisons), attention processes (two planned comparisons), language processes (three planned
comparisons) and reading (four planned comparisons), respectively. Effect sizes were calculated with r and we have
interpreted these results using Cohen’s (1988) categories: small effect size r = .1, medium r = .3, and large r = .5.
A significant difference between both groups was found for all the tasks measuring phonological processing (criterion
p < .017). Bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI showed significantly lower results in phonological awareness

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
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E. Aguilar-Mediavilla et al. / Journal of Communication Disorders xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 7

Table 2
Mean and standard deviation for phonological processing: significant differences with Mann–Whitney U and effect size with r.

Variable SLI Age controls U P r

Phonological processing
M SD M SD

Phonological awareness 15 4.9 22.6 7.4 72.5 .012* .43

Phonological memory 15.9 6.7 32.1 15.9 9* <.001* .81
Rapid Automatised naming 53.1 6.9 57.8 2.6 73 .013* .42

* A threshold level of significance p < .017 was considered after the Bonferroni correction.
M, mean; SD, standard deviation.

Table 3
Mean and standard deviation of attention processing: significant differences with Mann–Whitney U and effect size with r.

Variable SLI Age controls U P r

Attention processing
M SD M SD

Auditory attention 26.5 22.8 45.8 15.2 51.5 .006* .46

Visual attention 18.7 1.4 18.5 2.8 123.5 .474 .13

* A threshold level of significance p < .025 was considered after the Bonferroni correction.
M, mean; SD, standard deviation.

Table 4
Mean and standard deviation of language processing: significant differences with Mann–Whitney-U and effect size with r.

Variable SLI Age controls U P r

Language processing
M SD M SD

Comprehension of instructions 18.2 3.1 20.4 1.6 77.5 .020 .40

Sentence repetition 13.7 3.0 18.4 3.7 50.5 .001* .56
Verbal fluency 14.17 6.1 18.8 6.5 72 .012* .43

* A threshold level of significance p < .017 was considered after the Bonferroni correction.
M, mean; SD, standard deviation.

(U = 72.50, p = .012, r = .43), phonological memory (U = 9, p < .001, r = .81) and RAN (U = 73, p = .013, r = 0.42) as compared to
the control group (see Table 2 and Fig. 2). As it can be observed, effect sizes are medium or large for all the variables.
Regarding attentional measures (criterion p < .025), bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI had lower scores than
the control group in auditory attention (U = 51.50, p = .006, r = .46) with a medium effect size, but not in visual attention
(U = 123.5, p = .474, r = .13; see Table 3 and Fig. 3).
For language measures (see Table 4 and Fig. 4), Spanish–Catalan children with SLI scored lower than bilingual typically
developing peers (criterion p < .017) in sentence repetition (U = 13.7, p = .001, r = .56), and verbal fluency (U = 72, p = .012,
r = .43). After the Bonferroni criterion was applied for comprehension of instructions, the difference between both groups
was not significant (U = 77.5, p = .020, r = .40).
Our results support hypothesis 1, as we have found significantly lower scores in Spanish–Catalan children with SLI in
almost all the measured variables that are necessary for language production (phonological processes, language processes
and auditory attention), but not for language comprehension. Furthermore, visual attention scores are similar between both
groups and this variable does not seem to be directly related to language production.
In order to test hypothesis 2 we expected lower reading scores for bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI as
compared to typically developing bilingual peers. Regarding global reading skills (criterion p < .01), Spanish–Catalan
children with SLI obtained lower scores than controls (U = 61, p = .003, r = .49; see Table 5 and Fig. 5).
Our results revealed a significant difference (criterion p < .013) in two out of the four reading processes analysed (see
Table 5 and Fig. 6), namely, letter identification (U = 46.5, p < .001, r = .51) and semantic processing (U = 56, p = .002, r = .61),
both with large effect sizes.
However, the results were not significant for lexical processing (U = 95.5, p = .092, r = .29) neither for syntactic processing
(U = 85.5, p = .041, r = .35).
These results partially support hypothesis 2, as we have found higher scores in bilingual typically developing Spanish–
Catalan children, as compared to bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI in global reading, specifically, with respect to
their knowledge of letters and semantic processes, but not for the variables associated with lexical processing (reading
accuracy tasks) and syntactic processing (comprehension tasks).

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
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Fig. 2. Median and standard deviation of phonological processing scores between bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI and age-matched controls.

Table 5
Mean and standard deviation of reading abilities: significant differences with Mann–Whitney-U and effect size with r.

Reading processes SLI Age controls U P r

M SD M SD

Letter identification 24.5 2.2 26.5 0.9 46.5 <.001* .51

Lexical processes 62.2 17.1 68.4 6.8 95.5 .092 .29
Syntactic processes 4.5 5.0 9.3 6.7 85.5 .041 .35
Semantic processes 13.9 5.8 19.9 4.4 56.0 .002* .61
Total score (global) 114.2 27.1 132.3 13.3 61.0 .003* .49

* A threshold level of significance p < .01 was considered after the Bonferroni correction.
M, mean; SD, standard deviation.

3.2. Regression analysis

Hypothesis 3 stated that processing abilities at the age of 6 years would predict reading outcomes at the age of 8 years. To
do so, we conducted a regression analysis with a step-wise method (in order to minimise the variables included and in order
to maximise the variance explained by the model) between preschool processing abilities and reading outcome. We selected
this method in order to control for collinearity. The dependent variable was the total score in reading, and the independent
variables initially included in the model were phonological awareness, phonological memory, RAN, auditory attention, visual
attention, sentence comprehension, sentence repetition, and verbal fluency. Because the selected model was step-wise, in
each step only the variable that accounted for the largest proportion of the variance was introduced. This automatic
procedure allowed us to reduce the number of variables to a minimum by introducing only the significant variables in the
regression model.
The results showed that phonological awareness at the age of 6 years was a significant predictor of reading outcome at the
age of 8 years (R2 = .241, DR2 = .215, F(1, 29) = 9.2, p < .005). In a second step, the model considered verbal fluency to
significantly increase the explained variance (R2 = .360, DR2 = .314, F(2, 28) = 7.86, p < .002). However, phonological memory,
RAN, auditory attention, visual attention, sentence comprehension and sentence repetition were excluded by the regression

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
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Fig. 3. Median and standard deviation of attention scores between bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI and age-matched controls.

Table 6
Step-wise regression analysis with independent variables: phonological awareness and verbal fluency, and
total reading score as the dependent variable.

Total reading

Predictor b DR2
Step 1 .215
Constant 94.19
Phonological awareness 1.55
Step 2 .314
Constant 70.1
Phonological awareness 1.35
Verbal fluency 1.35

model, as these variables did not explain a significant proportion of the observed variance in reading performance (see
Table 6).
These results fully support hypothesis 3, as phonological awareness was detected as a significant predictor of reading
outcome at the age of 8 years, yet other processes helped to increase the predictive power of the model on reading
performance, namely, verbal fluency.

4. Discussion

The present work shows that bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI are less efficient than typically developing age-
matched peers in most of the preschool processing abilities analysed at the age of 6 years, such as in phonological processing
(phonological awareness, phonological memory and RAN), language production processing (sentence repetition and verbal
fluency), and auditory attention. However, other general capacities, such as visual attention and those related to language

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
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Fig. 4. Median and standard deviation of language processing scores between bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI and age-matched controls.

comprehension, did not show differences between both groups of children. Thus, bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI
have diverse difficulties beyond mere linguistic knowledge, but these cannot be attributed to a simple general or attention
deficit, as bilingual children with SLI have not shown difficulties in visual attention. Our results mirror previous ones
reporting that monolingual children with SLI have problems in phonological awareness (Goulandris et al., 2000),
phonological memory (Montgomery, 2003), RAN (Vandewalle et al., 2010), auditory attention (Montgomery et al., 2009) and
in language processing (see Leonard, 1998 or Mendoza, 2012 for a review). Furthermore, recent studies have reported that
bilingual children with SLI also have problems with phonological working memory (Elin Thordardottir & Brandeker, 2013;
Girbau & Schwartz, 2008), and other works have shown that Spanish monolingual children have also reduced capacities in
the domains of phonological working memory (Girbau & Schwartz, 2007) and attention (Aguado et al., 2006; Buiza-
Navarrete et al., 2007).
Thus, our results show that bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI have similar processing deficits to those of
monolingual children with SLI, as it has been recently pointed by Elin Thordardottir and Brandeker (2013), Kohnert (2010)
and Kohnert et al. (2009). Thus, the underlying deficits in children with SLI are mostly, but not uniquely, related to language,
and these deficits do not seem to vary with the number of languages being learned by the child and affect each language in a
similar manner. However, in the present work, we have not been able to explore whether cognitive abilities of bilingual
children with SLI are in fact superior to those displayed by monolingual children with SLI, as it has been reported in a wide
number of studies with typically developing children (Bialystok, 1999; Green, 1998).
Regarding literacy, our results are in line with those found for monolingual English-speaking children with SLI, in terms of
an impaired capacity for reading acquisition (Bishop & Adams, 1990; Catts, 1993; Catts et al., 2001; Catts, Fey, Tomblin, &
Zhang, 2002; Hayiou-Thomas, Harlaar, Dale, & Plomin, 2010; St. Clair et al., 2010; Tomblin et al., 2000). Therefore, the present
study is one of the few that shows that children with SLI have also reading difficulties in a transparent language (see
Brizzolara et al., 2011, for similar findings in Italian).
Focusing on the different reading tasks, bilingual children with SLI show lower scores than their peers in semantic
processing, which involves both literal and inferential text comprehension. This is one of the most complex reading tasks,
because children need to decode the text and comprehend explicit and implicit information. However, our results show that
bilingual children with SLI do not have problems with oral language comprehension (instruction comprehension). Thus, in

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
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Fig. 5. Median and standard deviation of total reading scores between bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI and age-matched controls.

the present study, Spanish–Catalan children with SLI show more difficulty in the comprehension of written texts than those
observed in response to oral demands. This could be due to the need of more complex and demanding cognitive operations of
the tasks that require reading, as compared to those that restrain comprehension to the auditory domain. Because reading
demands first a decoding process that allows the latter comprehension, our results seem to better fit with the hypothesis that
posits SLI as a more general-domain deficit (Leonard, 1998), which will be discussed later in this section.
Regarding reading accuracy, we have not found differences between Spanish–Catalan children with SLI and age-matched
peers in decoding graphemes to phonemes (lexical processing). Nevertheless, an unexpected finding was that bilingual
Spanish–Catalan children with SLI had lower outputs in letter identification, which is purportedly the easiest reading task.
Besides, letter identification is also independent of the child’s dominant language, because we considered as correct the
answers provided in any of both languages (Catalan and Spanish). Therefore, it seems that children with SLI also show
deficits in simple tasks (letter identification) even when other more complex tasks are being acquired (reading
comprehension). Thus, complex linguistic milestones seem to be acquired despite the incomplete incorporation of simpler
linguistic acquisitions, as we have already reported in a previous study with other components different from reading (see
Aguilar-Mediavilla et al., 2002).
However, the present results might contend against studies with English monolingual children regarding reading
accuracy. English monolingual children with SLI show difficulties in reading accuracy (lexical processes; Catts et al., 2001; St.
Clair et al., 2010; Tomblin et al., 2000). Nevertheless, we have not been able to replicate this finding in our sample of Spanish–
Catalan bilingual children with SLI. One might argue that Catalan, as a more transparent language, makes it less difficult to
transform graphemes into phonemes, as it has been supported by studies with typically developing children (Caravolas &
Bruck, 1993; Caravolas et al., 2012).
As the process of transforming graphemes into phonemes is easier in a transparent language, such as Catalan, it is possible
that other processing skills will also predict reading outcomes. Our results have shown that phonological awareness at
kindergarten explains most of the differences found between children in reading outcomes. Although we recommend this
result to be interpreted with caution because of the small sample size, this finding is consistent with studies in children with
SLI speaking English as their mother tongue (Catts et al., 2001, 2002; Tomblin et al., 1992, 2000; Tomblin, Records, et al.,
1997; Tomblin, Records, & Zhang, 1996; Tomblin, Smith, et al., 1997) and French (Zourou et al., 2010), but not in others with
shallower orthography, such as Dutch (Vandewalle et al., 2010, 2012). Thus, our results are in consonance with those studies
reporting phonological awareness to play an important role in reading even in a transparent language (Caravolas & Bruck,
1993; Caravolas et al., 2012).
Nevertheless, phonological awareness accounted for a moderate explained variance (21.5%) in reading outcomes. The
regression model also identified verbal fluency as a significant predictor of the explained variance in reading. Verbal fluency

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
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Fig. 6. Median and standard deviation of reading processes between bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI and age-matched controls.

is a measure of lexical knowledge that significantly influences reading abilities at school age, especially regarding reading
comprehension. Our findings are in line with those reported by Brizzolara et al. (2011) who also showed that lexical abilities
at pre-school age predict subsequently reading outcomes in Italian children at school age. As Italian and Catalan have more
transparent orthographies than English, lexical knowledge might play a more central role than in opaque languages, in which
phonological awareness is the most important predictor.
Given that the predictive power of the regression equation after considering phonological awareness and lexical fluency
was still moderate (31.4%), there might be other variables that are also important for reading. For instance, Catts et al. (2001)
found that mother’s education was a significant predictor of reading outcomes in English-speaking children with SLI. In
transparent languages, learning to read is easier than in shallower ones, and, therefore, intact processing abilities might not
be as crucial, especially for reading accuracy. It is thus possible that in transparent languages other variables different from
processing and linguistic ones could be at the basis of a differential acquisition of reading.
As we have mentioned earlier, our results do not seem compatible with a purely linguistic deficit as an explanatory
hypothesis of SLI, as a variety of processing difficulties have been found. Some of these processing abilities, such as
phonological awareness or phonological memory have a large linguistic load, but not others, such as auditory attention or
RAN. Thus, a limited processing capacity seems to better explain the observed deficits in Spanish–Catalan bilingual children
with SLI that might be better understood adopting a Developmental Causal Model (Morton & Frith, 2001; Scarborough, 2009,
see also Fig. 1). Following this model, reading difficulties in Spanish–Catalan children with SLI could be considered because of
their prior underlying general processing deficits that might have affected oral language. Thus, Spanish–Catalan children
with SLI would show distinct profiles at different developmental times that might be triggered by a common initial factor
affecting the whole learning process (limitation capacity that affects phonological working memory, auditory attention and
speed of processing). Additionally, the causal influence of deficient developments at any given time (e.g. first phonology, and
then language), would impact subsequent school learning (e.g. reading). In this vein, phonological deficits would trigger a
difficulty in language processing that might impair the ability to read, and, especially to comprehend texts. Moreover, a
limited processing capacity would also affect directly phonology, language and reading outcomes when the current task
would involve a considerable cognitive load.

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
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In light of our results, the evaluation of phonological awareness and lexical knowledge in bilingual children with SLI at a
very early age might provide with important clues to determine later reading difficulties. Early prevention and rehabilitation
programmes should thus include progressive exercises leading to improve phonological awareness, verbal fluency and the
identification of graphemes, especially among children at greater risk for subsequent difficulties in reading. The
implementation of tasks allowing reading comprehension should be introduced in a progressive manner.
At this point, it is worth mentioning some of the limitations of the present study. First, the small sample size was due to a
difficulty in finding enough children that fulfilled all the inclusion criteria at 6 years of age. Second, the present study does
not include a control group of monolingual children with SLI from the same socioeconomic context. This would have allowed
us to discern whether the differences found were or not associated to bilingualism. Nevertheless, in our community it is
practically impossible to find monolingual children, because almost all children are raised bilingual. Third and last, we
believe that further studies should explore the developmental trajectories in children with SLI, not only regarding their
reading outcomes, but also in taking into account the mutual interdependence between their cognitive and linguistic
capacities.

5. Conclusions

The present work constitutes one of the few that has explored the relationship between preschool processing abilities in
bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI and their subsequent reading outcomes. We have found that children with SLI
have deficits in several processing abilities at pre-school age and that these deficits are related with their reading outcomes
at school age. Thus, we report new evidence on the processes that are central for reading acquisition in a transparent
language, namely phonological awareness and lexical fluency.
We believe the present work helps us to understand better that the underlying limitations in information processing are
at the core of language difficulties in bilingual children with SLI. This general deficit might be responsible of their severe
difficulties with language that might in turn converge in a disadvantage for reading acquisition.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors reported no conflicts of interest with the research described in this research article.

Acknowledgments

This research work has been possible due to the project SEJ2006-12616 funded by the Spanish government and the ERDF:
European Regional Development Fund. We would also like to thank all the children who participated in the study and to their
families and schools. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers, who have helped us to improve the previous versions of
the manuscript.

Appendix A. Summary of the NEPSY (Korkman et al., 1998) tasks adapted to Spanish used to test phonological,
attentional and language processing abilities
Areas Measure Task Example

Phonological processing Phonological awareness Recognise a part of a word

(two type of tasks)
[TD$INLE] 1. Interviewer: cocina (kitchen)

niños (children) gallina (hen)

2. Interviewer: cina (chen)
2. Child: say sounds or point to the picture
Phonological segmentation 1. Interviewer: Say ‘‘romano’’ (roman) without
‘‘ro’’
2. Child: mano (hand)
Phonological memory Non-word repetition of increasing 1. Crumsi
difficulty (2–6 syllables) 2. Bafi
(. . .)
13. Escriflunaflistrop
Rapid automatised Quickly say the form,
naming (RAN) colour and size
[TD$INLE] 1. Child: red circle big

Square blue big

...

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
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Appendix A (Continued )
Areas Measure
Attention Auditory attention
Visual attention
Language processing Comprehension of
instructions
Sentence repetition
Verbal fluency
Appendix B. Summary of the PROLEC (Cuetos et al., 1996) tasks adapted to Catalan used to test reading processes
Areas Measure
Letter identification Name the letters
Same or different
Lexical processes Lexical decision
Word reading
Non-word reading
Word and non-word reading
Syntactic processes Grammatical structures
Punctuation marks
Semantic processes Sentence comprehension
Word comprehension
Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003
Task
Put a red square when the
child hears ‘‘Rojo’’ (red)
Encircle cats on an A3 page with
different drawings
Point to the image that
corresponds to the given
instruction
Sentence repetition of
increased difficulty
Build word in semantic
and phonetic categories
Task
Read letters
Say whether a pair of written
words or non-words are the
same or different
Read a string of letters and say
whether it is a word or a non-
word
Read words
Read non-words
Read words, with high and low
frequency, and non-words
Read three sentences and say
which of them corresponds to
the drawing
Read a text aloud doing the
punctuation marks
Do what the sentence read says
Read four texts (two narrative
and two expository) and answer
four questions for each text (two
literal ones and two inferential
ones)
Example
Negro, casa, pronto, ası´, escucha, ROJO, cuadrado,
ahora, amarillo (. . .)
[TD$INLE]
[TD$INLE] Example 1. The blue cross and
the yellow cross
Example 2. A cross that is on the left of
a circle and under a cross
1. ‘‘Duerme bien’’ (sleep well)
(. . .)
17. ‘‘El próximo miércoles a las dos de la tarde
nuestro equipo de fútbol jugará un partido en un
campeonato que se celebrará en el estadio.’’ (Next
Friday at two o’clock our football team will play a
match in
a championship to be held at the stadium)
Example 1: words of animals
Example 2: words beginning with F
Example
t m b
mercat-mercat (market-market)
cameta-caseta (little leg-little house)
calçap-calçap (footweap-footweap)
hotel (hotel)
truisa (omelese)
trena (braid)
arca (ark)
dolça (sweet)
grena (graid)
arta (arl)
dolta (swees)
boca (mouse)
flem (flem)
especulacio (speculation)
El conill està saltant sobre el moix. (The rabbit
jumps over the cat)
El moix està saltant sobre el conill.
(The cat jumps over the rabbit)
Al conill li salta el moix per sobre.
(The rabbit is jumped over by the cat)
Després de sortir de l’escola, en Joan va anar al parc
a veure als seus amics, els animals. (. . .)
(After leaving school, John went to the park to see
his friends, the animals.)
Tanca i obre el puny tres vegades. (Close and open
your fist three times)
En Carles volia anar al cine a veure la seva pel
lı´cula
preferida, però els seus pares no li deixaven. (. . .)
(Carles wanted to go to the cinema to see his
favourite film, but his parents would not let him)
A on volia anar en Carles? (Where did Carles want
to go?)
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Appendix C. Catalan alphabet

The Catalan alphabet derives from the Latin alphabet; it has 26 letters and it is largely based on the phonology of the language.
Catalan is a language with an intermediate level of orthographic depth and, as such, is shallower than English, Danish, Portuguese,
French and Dutch and less shallow than Spanish, Italian, German or Finnish (Seymour et al., 2003). In terms of syllabic structure,
Catalan has clear syllabic boundaries like French and Spanish, but has variable stress like Spanish and English, and vowel
reduction like English (Sebastián-Gallés, Dupoux, Segui, & Mehler, 1992). In the following table, the correspondence between
graphemes and phonemes in the Catalan language can be seen.
[TD$INLE]

Appendix D. Continuing educations questions

CEU questions

1. Studies show that bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with SLI. . .

a. Do not have problems with morphosyntax.
b. Manifest weak syllable omissions and syllabic reductions.
c. Do not omit function words.
d. Have a lower non-verbal IQ.
2. Longitudinal studies in SLI children have shown that. . .
a. Most children with SLI show a delay in reading acquisition.
b. Phonological awareness is not altered.
c. Phonological working memory was the best predictor of reading achievement in most of the studies.
d. Children with SLI do not have reading problems.

Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
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3. The results of the study show that children with SLI. . .

a. Have problems only in decoding abilities.
b. Have problems with visual attention.
c. Have problems in phonological awareness.
d. Do not have problems in rapid automatized naming.
4. Reading outcomes at age 8 in this study were predicted by. . .
a. Phonological awareness.
b. Sentence repetition.
c. Verbal fluency.
d. a and c are correct
5. Do the authors suggest that children with SLI present with difficulties because of a deficit constrained to the linguistic
level? (T/F)

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Please cite this article in press as: Aguilar-Mediavilla, E., et al. Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent
reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Journal of
Communication Disorders (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.03.003