Speech development in preschool children: evaluating the contribution of phonological short-term and phonological working memory

Abstract

Emerging evidence suggests domain-general processes, including working memory, may contribute to reduced speech production skills in young children. This study compared the phonological short-term (pSTM) and phonological working memory (pWM) abilities of 50 monolingual English-speaking children between 3;6 and 5;11 with typical speech production skills and percentage consonant correct (PCC) standard scores of 12 and above (n = 22) and typical speech production skills and PCC standard scores of between 8 and 11 (n = 28). A multiple hierarchical regression was also conducted to determine whether pSTM and/or pWM could predict PCC. Children with typical speech production skills and PCC standard ..