Heritability and longitudinal outcomes of spelling skills in individuals with histories of early speech and language disorders

This study examined the spelling skills in middle childhood and adolescence in individuals with histories of early childhood speech sound disorders (SSD) with and without language impairment (LI). Youth without such histories were also included (No SSD/LI group). The heritability of spelling skills at each age level was estimated. Children with SSD were classified as SSD-only, SSD with LI but without childhood apraxia of speech (SSD + LI/No CAS), and CAS and LI (CAS + LI). The SSD-only group did not differ in spelling from the No SSD/LI group, suggesting that SSD-only did not increase risk for poor spelling. The SSD + LI/No CAS and CAS + LI groups had poorer spelling skills than the SSD-only and No SSD/LI groups. Spelling was associated with phonological awareness in the middle childhood and adolescent samples and with rapid automatized naming in the adolescent sample. Heritability of spelling skills was stronger in adolescence than in middle childhood. Differences in the correlates of spelling and in heritability at the two ages suggest developmental changes in the factors contributing to spelling.