Rhyme and Phonemic Awareness Skills in Kannada Speaking Children with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

Rhyme and phoneme awareness are skills that are essential for learning to read and spell. Their significance has been well established in alphabetic languages. Few studies have ventured to understand these skills in an alpha-syllabary language such as Kannada, where their significance has been debated. However, research related to these skills in childhood conditions like cerebral palsy is scarce. The present study aimed to understand the rhyme and phonemic awareness skills through the tasks of rhyme recognition, phoneme stripping and phoneme oddity for non-words using Metaphonological Skills Test (Prema, 1997). The participants were Kannada speaking children with cerebral palsy (n=12) and language-age (> 8 years) matched, typically developing peers (n=30). The results showed a significant difference between groups for phoneme stripping alone. This implies a lag in the development of phoneme awareness skills in children with cerebral palsy (CWCP). This necessitates early metaphonological instruction and inclusion in the educational curriculum of CWCP.