This study aims to compare auditory temporal processing and phonological processing across locations and age levels and to test the direct and indirect effects of auditory temporal and phonological processing on proficiency in Chinese character reading. We recruited 108 typically developing children -- 25 and 24 kindergarteners from Taiwan and…

The present longitudinal study investigated the hypothesis that early musical skills (as measured by melodic and rhythmic perception and memory) predict later literacy development via a mediating effect of phonology. We examined 130 French-speaking children, 31 of whom with a familial risk for developmental dyslexia (DD). Their abilities in the…

Purpose: Effects related to literacy acquisition have been observed at different levels of speech processing. This study investigated the link between orthographic knowledge and children's perception and production of specific speech sounds. Method: Sixty Spanish-speaking second graders, differing in their phonological decoding skills, completed a…

Previous studies have demonstrated that active engagement in musical activities benefits auditory and cognitive processing. However, it is still unclear whether musical experience improves domain-general mechanisms reflected in superior functioning in language or the enhancement is selective and limited to musical abilities. In the present study,…

Incremental rehearsal (IR) is a flashcard technique that has produced strong effects for a variety of outcomes including word recognition. We utilized theory-based modifications to IR to enhance maintenance and generalization of sight words. We utilized a within-subjects design in which 41 participants in 2nd and 3rd grade were taught seven…

In our current culture, children are exposed to a huge amount of audiovisual media, of which many formats include animated pictures, such as in videos, for instance. The current study addresses the use of audiovisual media in order to increase the effectiveness of learning and teaching. We examined how auditory text, audiovisual text with static…

Better understanding of the mechanisms underlying early reading skills can lead to improved interventions. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine multivariate associations among reading, language, spoken phonological awareness, and fingerspelling abilities for three groups of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) beginning readers: those who…

The purpose of this study was to examine if student understanding of new material could be promoted by manipulating the perceptual factors experienced at the time of learning. It was hypothesized that the thematic relevance of perceptual factors would be a significant contributor to learner understanding. To test this hypothesis, one hundred…

In a longitudinal study, auditory and visual temporal order thresholds (TOTs) were investigated in primary school children (N = 236; mean age at first data point = 6;7) at the beginning of Grade 1 and the end of Grade 2 to test whether rapid temporal processing abilities predict reading and spelling at the end of Grades 1 and 2. Auditory and…

Dyslexia is heritable and associated with phonological processing deficits that can be reflected in the event-related potentials (ERPs). Here, we recorded ERPs from 2-month-old infants at risk of dyslexia and from a control group to investigate whether their auditory system processes /bAk/ and /dAk/ changes differently. The speech sounds were…

The aim of this study was to examine if specific skills that are developed during preschool years could predict the reading performance in the first and second grade of primary school. Two hundred and eighty-seven children participated in this longitudinal study. At the kindergarten level, phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatised naming,…

This study investigated the differential contribution of auditory-verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) on decoding skills in second- and fifth-grade children identified with poor decoding. Thirty-two second-grade students and 22 fifth-grade students completed measures that assessed simple and complex auditory-verbal and visuospatial memory,…

This study is to investigate the effectiveness of using mobile devices such as iPhone/iPad/android phone/tablet to facilitate mobile learning in aural skills. The application "Auralbook" was designed in 2011 by an engineer/musician to use mobile devices to learn aural skills. This application enables students to sing, record, clap and…

Deficits in verbal short-term memory have been identified as one factor underlying reading and spelling disorders. However, the nature of this deficit is still unclear. It has been proposed that poor readers make less use of phonological coding, especially if the task can be solved through visual strategies. In the framework of Baddeley's…