Rise Time Perception, Phonological Processing, and Reading in Brazilian Portuguese-Speaking Schoolchildren

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Hellen de Oliveira Valentim Campos ◽  
Luciana Mendonça Alves ◽  
Leandro Alves Pereira ◽  
Rui Rothe-Neves

<b><i>Background/Aims:</i></b> Studies of people with dyslexia have pointed to the ability to perceive the amplitude envelope rise time (“beat” perception) as a possible cause of phonological processing (PhP) difficulties in this population. However, there are very few studies about the relationships between such skills in the non-dyslexic school population. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> We investigated the influence of the beat perception ability on PhP and reading skills of 93 Brazilian Portuguese-speaking schoolchildren from the 3rd to the 5th year, with data on reading, phonological awareness (PhA), lexical access, phonological operational memory, and perception of amplitude envelope rise time. To verify the possible effects of age, gender, and school grade on the tasks in the study, we directly included these variables in the models. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Modeling structural equations showed that beat perception did not influence PhP or reading skills, but only the tasks of repetition of words and pseudowords. These tasks may be related because of the demand for phonological working memory necessary to perform the beat perception task rather than a possible connection between this and phonological abilities, as reported in the literature. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> We suspect beat perception could be of relevance only for subjects with altered reading and/or a deficit in PhP. Further studies will indicate whether the rise time of the amplitude envelope is an essential acoustic clue only for those individuals whose PhA ability is not fully present.

Psico-USF ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Viana de Freitas Junior ◽  
Márcia Maria Peruzzi Elia da Mota

Abstract The present study aims to answer a recently raised controversy regarding the role that morphological awareness has to reading skills acquisition in Brazilian Portuguese. The aim was to investigate whether morphological awareness contributes to reading after controlling for non-verbal intelligence and phonological awareness in Brazilian Portuguese variables. The study included 52 elementary school students enrolled in a public school in the municipality of São Gonçalo, state of Rio de Janeiro. The hierarchical regression analyses showed that derivational morphological awareness contributes to reading independently of phonological processing and non-verbal ability. The results of this study indicate that morphological awareness contributes to reading words but not to reading comprehension. The results of this study corroborate with the hypothesis that even in an alphabetic language, such as Portuguese, morphological awareness is important to reading acquisition.


1993 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 850-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
Betty U. Watson ◽  
Theodore K. Miller

Auditory perception has been proposed as one source of individual variation in the phonological abilities that play a critical role in skilled reading as well as in reading disabilities. A structural equation approach (LISREL, Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1990) was used to analyze relationships among auditory perception, phonological processing, and reading in a sample of 94 college undergraduates, 24 of whom met specific criteria for a reading disability. In the mathematical model that proved to be the best fit to the data, speech perception was strongly related to three of four phonological variables including short- and long-term auditory memory and phoneme segmentation. These phonological variables in turn were strongly related to reading. Nonverbal temporal processing was not significantly related to any of the phonological variables in the structural equations. It was concluded that speech perception, which was measured with speech repetition, syllable sequence discrimination, and degraded speech tasks, may contribute significantly to individual differences in the phonological abilities necessary for skilled reading.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianna L. Yamasaki ◽  
Karla Kay McGregor ◽  
James R. Booth

According to the Interactive Specialization Theory, cognitive skill development is facilitated by a process of neural specialization. In line with this theory, the current study investigated whether neural specialization for phonological and semantic processing at 5-to-6 years old was predictive of growth in word reading skills from 5-to-8 years old. Specifically, four regression models were estimated in which reading growth was predicted from: (1) an intercept-only model, (2) measures of semantic and phonological neural specialization, (3) performance on semantic and phonological behavioral tasks, or (4) a combination of neural specialization and behavioral performance. Results from the preregistered analyses revealed little evidence in favor of the hypothesis that early semantic and phonological skills predict growth in reading. However, results from the exploratory analyses, which included a larger sample, focused exclusively on the phonological predictors, and investigated relative growth in reading, demonstrated strong evidence that variability in phonological processing is predictive of growth in word reading skills. Specifically, the best fitting model included both measures of phonological neural specialization within the posterior superior temporal gyrus and performance on a phonological behavioral task. This work provides important preliminary evidence in favor of the Interactive Specialization Theory and, more specifically, for the role of phonological neural specialization in the development of early word reading skills.


2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarmo Hämäläinen ◽  
Nicole Landi ◽  
Otto Loberg ◽  
Kaisa Lohvansuu ◽  
Kenneth Pugh ◽  
...  

Development of reading skills has been shown to be tightly linked to phonological processing skills and to some extent to speech perception abilities. Although speech perception is also known to play a role in reading development, it is not clear which processes underlie this connection. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) we investigated the speech processing mechanisms for common and uncommon sound contrasts (/ba/-/da/-/ga/ and /ata/-/at: a/) with respect to the native language of school-age children in Finland and the US. In addition, a comprehensive behavioral test battery of reading and phonological processing was administered. ERPs revealed that the children could discriminate between the speech sound contrasts (place of articulation and phoneme length) regardless of their native language. No differences emerged between the Finnish and US children in their change detection responses. The brain responses to the phoneme length contrast, however, correlated robustly with reading scores in the US children, with larger responses being linked to poorer reading skills. Finnish children also showed correlations between the reading and phonological measures and ERP responses, but the pattern of results was not as clear as for the US children. The results indicate that speech perception is linked to reading skills and this link is more robust for uncommon speech sound contrasts.


2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIE FORGEARD ◽  
GOTTFRIED SCHLAUG ◽  
ANDREA NORTON ◽  
CAMILLA ROSAM ◽  
UDITA IYENGAR ◽  
...  

PAST RESEARCH HAS SHOWN THAT MUSIC and language skills are related in normal-reading children as well as in children with dyslexia. In both an ongoing longitudinal study with normal-reading children and a pilot study with children with dyslexia, we found a strong relationship between musical discrimination abilities and language-related skills. In normal-reading children, musical discrimination predicted phonological and reading skills (Studies 1 and 2). These relationships were stronger in children with music training than in control children without music training. In children with dyslexia,musical discrimination predicted phonological skills, which in turn predicted reading abilities (Study 3). Furthermore, normal-reading children with music training surpassed both normal-reading controls and children with dyslexia in melodic discrimination. Controls also outperformed children with dyslexia (Study 4). Taken together, these findings suggest that a music intervention that strengthens the basic auditory music perception skills of children with dyslexia may also remediate some of their language deficits.


2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 1292-1305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Richards ◽  
Usha Goswami

Purpose We investigated whether impaired acoustic processing is a factor in developmental language disorders. The amplitude envelope of the speech signal is known to be important in language processing. We examined whether impaired perception of amplitude envelope rise time is related to impaired perception of lexical and phrasal stress in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method Twenty-two children aged between 8 and 12 years participated in this study. Twelve had SLI; 10 were typically developing controls. All children completed psychoacoustic tasks measuring rise time, intensity, frequency, and duration discrimination. They also completed 2 linguistic stress tasks measuring lexical and phrasal stress perception. Results The SLI group scored significantly below the typically developing controls on both stress perception tasks. Performance on stress tasks correlated with individual differences in auditory sensitivity. Rise time and frequency thresholds accounted for the most unique variance. Digit Span also contributed to task success for the SLI group. Conclusions The SLI group had difficulties with both acoustic and stress perception tasks. Our data suggest that poor sensitivity to amplitude rise time and sound frequency significantly contributes to the stress perception skills of children with SLI. Other cognitive factors such as phonological memory are also implicated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianna L. Yamasaki ◽  
Karla K. McGregor ◽  
James R. Booth

According to the Interactive Specialization Theory, cognitive skill development is facilitated by a process of neural specialization. In line with this theory, the current study investigated whether neural specialization for phonological and semantic processing at 5-to-6 years old was predictive of growth in word reading skills 2 years later. Specifically, four regression models were estimated in which reading growth was predicted from: (1) an intercept-only model; (2) measures of semantic and phonological neural specialization; (3) performance on semantic and phonological behavioral tasks; or (4) a combination of neural specialization and behavioral performance. Results from the preregistered analyses revealed little evidence in favor of the hypothesis that early semantic and phonological skills are predictive of growth in reading. However, results from the exploratory analyses, which included a larger sample, added age at Time 1 as a covariate, and investigated relative growth in reading, demonstrated decisive evidence that variability in phonological processing is predictive of reading growth. The best fitting model included both measures of specialization within the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) and behavioral performance. This work provides important evidence in favor of the Interactive Specialization Theory and, more specifically, for the role of phonological neural specialization in the development of early word reading skills.


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