The Idea of an Essay, Volume 4

172 The Idea of an Essay: Volume 4 relatively superficial level of any non-vocal child with cerebral palsy. Imagine a database with stored correlations per factor which apply to a specific child. To make this idea more clear, imagine Connor needs to take a phonological test. Instead of the usual case in which a teacher pulls the same exam out for Connor as he or she would for any other child, the teacher goes to an online database uploaded on his or her computer. With simple button clicks, the teacher is able to check through every factor which applies to Connor such as age, gender, severity of CP, etc. Such a database would have the ability to compile an exam specifically designed to test Connor’s needs; clearly a much more fruitful exercise. Case By Case In order to conclude whether or not these factors play a role in the abilities of a non-vocal child with CP regarding literacy, they must be studied. One study uses 28 children, 14 Swedish and 14 Irish, who have CP, in order to outline their abilities in different phonological tasks. After studying memory tasks, letter knowledge, reading tasks, and spelling tasks, no large correlations show up. There is large variability in groups in terms of school experience and age. Of all of the tests, phenome blending and deletion seemed to be the easiest. Scores on all of the reading tasks ranged from 0 to 100%. Spelling real words which were spoken orally proved to be the hardest task. Some students scored zero on all of the tasks, while others achieved 100% on every task (Larsson, Sandberg, & Smith, 2010). Although at first it may seem this would imply these factors do not matter, nothing could be further from the truth. Such results conclude the fact that