The relationship between phonological processing skills and word and nonword identification performance in children with mild intellectual disabilities.

The team tested the kids with mild intellectual disability. All were 7-11 years old and in self-contained classrooms.

Each child took quick phonology games. They also read real words and made-up words aloud. The study asked: do the phonology scores predict the reading scores?

Kids who scored high on phonological tasks also read real and fake words best. The link was strong for both kinds of words.

In plain numbers, phonology explained about half of the difference in reading scores among the children.

Scalzo et al. (2015) saw the same pattern five years later. They tracked kids for two years and still found early phonology plus letter-sound skill forecast later reading growth. Together the papers show the link is steady, not a one-time fluke.

Hilton et al. (2010) widened the lens. They showed phonological short-term memory, one slice of working memory, also predicts literacy in kids with ID. C et al. focused on processing; L et al. added memory storage. The two studies stack, not clash.

Lecavalier et al. (2006) looks like a contradiction at first. They reported big reading gaps between kids with ID and typical peers. C et al., however, looked inside the ID group and found strong phonology-reading ties. Both can be true: the group reads lower overall, yet within the group phonology still drives progress.

If you assess phonological processing early, you can spot which children with ID will struggle most with reading. Build lessons that stretch blending, segmenting, and sound play. The payoff should show in both real-word and nonsense-word fluency probes.