AUTHOR=Bigozzi Lucia, Tarchi Christian, Caudek Corrado, Pinto Giuliana TITLE=Predicting Reading and Spelling Disorders: A 4-Year Prospective Cohort Study JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=7 YEAR=2016 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00337 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00337 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=In this 4-year prospective cohort study, children with a reading and spelling disorder, children with a spelling impairment, and children without a reading and/or spelling disorder (control group) in a transparent orthography were identified in third grade, and their emergent literacy performances in kindergarten compared retrospectively. Six hundred and forty-two Italian children participated. This cohort was followed from the last year of kindergarten to third grade. In kindergarten, the children were assessed in phonological awareness, conceptual knowledge of writing systems and textual competence. In third grade, 18 children with a reading and spelling impairment and 13 children with a spelling impairment were identified. Overall, conceptual knowledge of the writing system was the only statistically significant predictor of the clinical samples. No differences were found between the two clinical samples.