The effect of phonological complexity on the order in which words are acquired in early childhood

During the second year of life, children acquire words and expand their receptive and expressive vocabularies at a rapid pace. At this age, toddlers’ phonological abilities are also developing rapidly. The current study investigated the effect of phonological complexity of words on the order in which they are acquired, receptively and expressively. Data were collected from Hebrew-speaking parents of 881 typically developing toddlers: 417 girls and 464 boys, aged 1;0 to 2;0 years old. Parents reported on their child’s receptive and expressive vocabularies by completing a computerized version of the Hebrew adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Phonological complexity scores of the target words were calculated using the Phonological Mean Length of Utterances measure. The proportion of children who were reported to understand and produce each word at each age was calculated. Results showed that phonological complexity affected the acquisition of word comprehension and word production. Words that are less phonologically complex were acquired earlier, representing a process of subconscious selection of words that are easier to produce.

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

<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.

Are Linguistic Prediction Deficits Characteristic of Adults with Dyslexia?

Individuals with dyslexia show deficits in phonological abilities, rapid automatized naming, short-term/working memory, processing speed, and some aspects of sensory and visual processing. There is currently one report in the literature that individuals with dyslexia also show impairments in linguistic prediction. The current study sought to investigate prediction in language processing in dyslexia. Forty-one adults with dyslexia and 43 typically-developing controls participated. In the experiment, participants made speeded-acceptability judgements in sentences with word final cloze manipulations. The final word was a high-cloze probability word, a low-cloze probability word, or a semantically anomalous word. Reaction time from the onset of the final word to participants’ response was recorded. Results indicated that individuals with dyslexia showed longer reaction times, and crucially, they showed clear differences from controls in low predictability sentences, which is consistent with deficits in linguistic prediction. Conclusions focus on the mechanism supporting prediction in language comprehension and possible reasons why individuals with dyslexia show less prediction.

Vocabulary and Phonological Abilities Affect Dual Language Learners' Consonant Production Accuracy Within and Across Languages: A Large-Scale Study of 3- to 6-Year-Old Spanish–English Dual Language Learners

Purpose This study examined factors of language ability that predict consonant production accuracy in young Spanish–English dual language learners (DLLs). Method Participants were 695 Latino DLLs, ages 3;0–6;5 (years;months). Single-word productions were elicited using the Bilingual Phonological Assessment (Miccio & Hammer, 2006). Children's consonant productions were assessed using Percentage of Consonants Correct–Revised (PCC-R; Shriberg et al., 1997a). Vocabulary abilities were assessed using the Woodcock–Muñoz Language Survey–Revised (Woodcock et al., 2005). Multiple linear regression analyses were used to determine the effects of vocabulary abilities and cross-language consonant production abilities on children's consonant production accuracy in each language. Results Large amounts of the variance in PCC-R scores for English ( R 2 = .65) and Spanish ( R 2 = .43) were predicted by children's age, vocabulary scores within the same language, and PCC-R scores across languages. Conclusion Spanish–English DLLs' consonant production abilities in both languages improve with age between 3;0 and 6;5. DLLs' accuracy in each language is also affected by vocabulary abilities within the same language and by their consonant production abilities in the other language. In particular, children's consonant production abilities in each language were highly predictive of their consonant production abilities in the other language, which suggests that shared phonological skills support their development across languages.

The N170 as a marker of Reading Proficiency

The major aim of the thesis is to investigate a new biological marker for reading proficiency. One typical marker for dyslexia is the mismatch negativity (MMN) of the auditory event-related brain potential. In the present studies I shall explore a marker that is more reading-specific: the N170 component (also called N1). This component is more reading specific because it responds to and is modulated by visual stimuli depending on the expertise of the reader with a specific stimulus class such as words or faces. In contrast, the MMN is primarily sensitive to deviant auditory stimuli in an otherwise consistent series of auditory events. The first two studies examined whether there is a correlation between habituation of the N170 and reading speed in adult normal readers and 2nd graders. The ongoing habituation of the N170 signal represents the automatization of the reading process. In a third study rhymes were used to explore the relation between N170 laterality, phonological abilities (rhyming) and reading ability/speed.

Skrining Kemampuan Phonological Awareness Anak Pra Sekolah

Background. In the learning process at school, especially in pre-school education, phonological ability is the entrance for children in mastery of language. In Indonesia, research that focuses on phonological abilities in pre-school children is still very limited. Objective. This study aims to determine the profile of pre-school children's phonological awareness abilities. Method. Participants were recruited from the Surakarta ABA Thoyibah Kindergarten with a total of 27 class B children to participate in this study. Screening is given to participants. The screening results will reflect the profile of children's phonological awareness abilities. Results. There are five items that can be used to screen pre-school children's phonological awareness skills: rhyme, syllable blending, initial phoneme identification, medial phoneme identification, and final phoneme identification. The results of the internal validation analysis of phonological awareness subtest were as follows: rhyme 0.684, syllable blending 0.772, initial phoneme identification 0.880, medial phoneme identification 0.862, and final phoneme identification 0.735. Conclusion. The value of internal validity or the correlation between items in phonological awareness screening is good because all items correlated have a correlation with a low probability value.

Diagnosis of dyslexic disorders and identification of factors associated with reading learning disabilities within the Moroccan context

Reading acquisition disorders constitute the main problem in children's learning. in Morocco, epidemiological data are very rare. Research, mainly in the English language, concerns either the sociological or the cognitive field. Few studies, among them not one in Arabic, have explored the link relating to social and cognitive factors. The purpose of our work is to study and analyze the cognitive and social variables related to different reading skills among Moroccan pupils in primary and secondary public schools. From a sample of 754 learners (388 boys and 366 girls) ranging in age from 9 to 15 years with an average of 11.59 years, the diagnostic tests identified 145 students with deficient skills "Bad readers (BR)," 128 suspected of being in difficulty classified as « intermediate level (IL) » and a group of 481 children as good readers ( GR). Statistical analyses have shown that the first two groups (BR and IL) represent 24% in the favoured areas compared to 43% in the disadvantaged. The analysis of scores and the nature of the errors made on various reading tests show that 41 students, or 5.43% of our sample, present a dyslexia profile. 13 (1.72%) of whom have very severe difficulties. The phonological aptitudes (Rapid automatized naming, phonological short-time memory and especially phonological awareness) mainly reflect the level of reading. These phonological abilities are highly influenced by early attendance of preschool and by the degree of exposure to written language at home. These data, which are unique in Morocco, are consistent to that of the published subject literature. They make it possible to plan preventive actions by generalizing pre-school teaching, particularly in precarious environments. These actions should be based on playful exercises aimed at improving phonological abilities at an early age, while exploiting the brain sensitivity to reading at that age. Phonological awareness and rapid naming are the most implicated factors in the disparity of reading skills. These abilities are highly influenced by the integration of preschool at a very early age and by the degree of exposure to written language activities. Therefore, there is a need to plan preventive actions, based on playful exercises, aiming to improve phonological skills from the pre-school period