LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 25:11 November 2025
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Selvi M. Bunce, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
         Nathan Mulder Bunce, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Honorary Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

Celebrate India!
Unity in Diversity!!

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

Poetic Encounter
Available in https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09TT86S4T

Poems
Naked: the honest browsings of two brown women
Available in https://www.amazon.in

Decrees
Available in https://www.amazon.com

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2025
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

Phonological Awareness Skills of a Hindi Speaking Children with Mild Intellectual Disability

Uday Singh and
Dr. R. Saranya

Abstract

Phonological awareness (PA) is a key precursor to literacy development, yet children with mild intellectual disability (ID) often demonstrate delays or atypical patterns in PA acquisition. This case study examines the phonological awareness skills of a 6-year-old Hindi-speaking child with mild ID using the Phonological Awareness Test for Hindi-Speaking Kindergarten Children (PATH-KG). The child was assessed across rhyme-, syllable-, and word-level tasks corresponding to developmental expectations for 3- to 5-year-olds. Results showed strong foundational PA abilities, including full scores in rhyme generation, syllable blending, syllable segmentation, and word counting. Moderate difficulty was noted in rhyme discrimination and rhyme oddity tasks. Marked weaknesses emerged in advanced word-level manipulation tasks such as word deletion, substitution, and sentence-level switching. The findings reveal an uneven PA profile, with intact basic skills but impaired higher-order processing. Targeted intervention focusing on complex phonological and syntactic skills is recommended to support literacy development.

Keywords:Phonological Awareness; Mild Intellectual Disability; Hindi-speaking Children; Rhyme Awareness; Syllable Segmentation; Word Manipulation;

Introduction

Phonological awareness (PA) refers to an individual's ability of recognizing, discriminating, and manipulating the sounds in his/ her language, regardless of the size of the focused unit (Anthony & Francis, 2005). It refers to children's knowledge of the sound structure of a language as well as the ability to manipulate this sound structure (Burt et al., 1999). Phonological awareness develop at four levels, viz: word level, syllable level, onset- rime level and phonemic level (Lane, Pullen, Eisele, & Jordan, 2002). Among these, word level is the easiest, while phonemic level is the most difficult (Adams, 1990). Development of phonological awareness will allow the child to tell you when two words end with the same sound (Eleanor, 2009). A child who has phonological awareness can tell you when two words rhyme and when two words start with the same sound.

Intellectual disability is a state of interrupted and incomplete mental development that is particularly characterized by the impairment of those abilities that occur during the development period and that affect the general level of intelligence, such as: cognitive, speech, motor and social abilities (WHO, 1992).The causes of intellectual disability are divided into: prenatal (viral infections, bacterial infections, spirochete infections, parasitic diseases, exposure to toxins, consumption of certain drugs, excessive smoking, ionizing radiation, anorexia in the mother, malnutrition in the mother, endocrine disorders, others), perinatal (fetal asphyxia, intracranial hemorrhage, hyaline lung membrane in the newborn, mechanical pressures on the fetus, prematurity, others) and postnatal (infections, exposure to toxins, malnutrition, endocrine disorders, head injuries, vascular disorders, immune reaction, others).

Intellectual disability is a condition that not only affects the individual's quality of life but also poses challenges for their family, educators, and society as a whole. Disruptions appear in behavior, social adjustment, communication, motor skills, emotions, feelings, perception, imagination, attention, thoughts, memory, time-space context, willpower, and temperament. Intellectual disability is categorized based on the level of impairment into: mild intellectual disability, moderate intellectual disability, severe intellectual disability, profound intellectual disability, and other unspecified forms of intellectual disability. The structure of internal dialogue, or the arrangement of verbal reasoning, is essential for an individual to comprehend sense, reflect, and communicate effectively.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Uday Singh
Ph.D. Scholar
CAS in Linguistics
Annamalai University
Annamalai Nagar – 608002
Tamil Nadu
singhuday361@gmail.com
&
Dr. R. Saranya
Professor
CAS in Linguistics
Annamalai University
Annamalai Nagar – 608002
Tamil Nadu
drsaranyaraja@gmail.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.