Abstract:
Perceptual skills are regarded as important factors in the development of early reading skills. The current study seeks to identify the relationship of visual auditory perceptual variables with reading and its related skills in children of grade I to VIII. A total of 160 typically developing children (TDC) from standard I to VIII were taken, covering 20 children (10 males and 10 females) from each grade.Participants were divided into two groups according to the medium of instruction in the respective schools: TDC were being educated in a Hindi medium school (TDCH) and TDC who were being educated in an English medium school (TDCE). A Hindi adaptation of Early Reading Skills (ERS,) originally developed by Rae & Potter (1973), was administered in single 30 minute sessions. The descriptive analyses revealed homogeneity in the pattern of acquisition of perceptual skills. But the English medium children were found to have better scores on all the sections of perceptual skills. In all the grades, in both the groups, a statistically significant relation existed between all the perceptual parameters and reading related skills. None of the correlations were found to be statistically significant, except that between auditory perceptual composite score and structural analysis test score. The results of this study suggest that a perceptual deficit may hinder reading development in the elementary grades, but in higher grades a more complex interrelation of perceptual and reading related skills exist. Keeping in mind the results of this study may help avoid inaccurate assessment results or clinical reasoning, due to undetected or unsuspected perceptual deficits.