Sex differences and variability in phonological sensitivity among primary school children

Abstract

Sex differences in phonological sensitivity and awareness were assessed using well-established linguistic measures in translation in a two-year longitudinal study on a sample of 136 children during their first two years at school. Girls obtained significantly higher means on a number of measures of phonological sensitivity but not on tests of ability (Coloured Progressive Matrices) (Cohen’s d with Hedges adjustment for sample size = .18). The results suggest that girls possess superior phonological skills on entry to school at age 5 years, are better able to utilise their literacy learning experiences to bring them to bear on phonological awareness tasks, and have a lower variance ratio than boys do. There is some support in this study for the notion that girls have somewhat better developed phonological loop memory skills than boys do.