Early Reading Abilities of Bilingual Children With Nonsyndromic Orofacial Clefts.

Objective: To investigate the early reading abilities, and related cognitive-linguistic processes, in bilingual children with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P), and to identify deficits that might be amenable to intervention.

Design And Participants: Bilingual participants with CL/P aged 5 to 6 years who were English-dominant ( n=17) or Mandarin-dominant ( n=18) were recruited using consecutive sampling from a national cleft treatment center and matched pairwise to a sample of typically developing (TD) children on language dominance, age, and socioeconomic status. All participants were assessed in English on single-word reading accuracy using the Wide Range Achievement Test (4th Ed), and key cognitive-linguistic factors associated with reading development: phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), receptive and expressive vocabulary, and verbal short-term and working memory.