During a 15-year longitudinal study, 31 Finnish students (risk group) who had been identified as having deficiencies in reading and writing readiness at pre-school through the German Breuer-Weuffen Differentiation Test were compared with their peers (n = 62) in order to study long-term differences that emerged at the starting point of the study. In 1999, the students in the risk group were found to achieve significantly lower final school grades and they also had lower perceptions of their own scholastic competence. In 2005, students in the risk group perceived themselves as less competent than their peers in social acceptance, sense of global self-worth areas and in the strength-perceptions related to mathematical thinking, learning skills, and self-regulation. Path analyses showed that verbo-sensory motor status measured at pre-school age had long-term effects on participants' educational life-course and global self-worth. Possible explanations of the findings and implications for early identification are discussed. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)