One of a series of semiannual reports, this publication contains 18 articles which report the status and progress of studies on the nature of speech, instrumentation for its investigation, and practical applications. Articles and their authors are as follows: "Phonology and Beginning Reading Revisited (Isabelle Y. Liberman); "The Role of Working Memory in Reading Disability" (Susan Brady); "Working Memory and Comprehension of Spoken Sentences: Investigations of Children with Reading Disorder" (Stephen Crain and others); "Explaining Failures in Spoken Language Comprehension by Children with Reading Disability" (Stephen Crain and Donald Shankweiler); "How Early Phonological Development Might Set the Stage for Phoneme Awareness" (Anne E. Fowler); "Modularity and the Effects of Experience" (Alvin M. Liberman and Ignatius G. Mattingly); "Modularity and Disassociations in Memory Systems" (Robert G. Crowder); "Representation and Reality: Physical Systems and Phonological Structure" (Catherine P. Browman and Louis Goldstein); "Young Infants' Perception of Liquid Coarticulatory Influences on Following Stop Consonants" (Carol A. Fowler and others); "Extracting Dynamic Parameters from Speech Movement Data" (Caroline L. Smith and others); "Phonological Underspecification and Speech Motor Organization" (Suzanne E. Boyce and others); "Task Coordination in Human Prehension" (Patrick Haggard); "Masking and Stimulus Intensity Effects on Duplex Perception: A Confirmation of the Dissociation between Speech and Nonspeech Modes" (Shlomo Bentin and Virginia Mann); "The Influence of Spectral Prominence on Perceived Vowel Quality" (Patrice Speeter Beddor and Sarah Hawkins); "On the Perception of Speech from Time-Varying Acoustic Information: Contributions of Amplitude Variation" (Robert E. Remez and Philip E. Rubin); "Subject Definition and Selection Criteria for Stuttering Research in Adult Subjects" (Peter J. Alfonso); "Vocal Fundamental Frequency Variability in Young Children: A Comment on 'Developmental Trends in Vocal Fundamental Frequency of Young Children' by M. Robb and J. Saxman" (Margaret Lahey and others); and "Patterns of Expressive Timing in Performances of a Beethoven Minuet by Nineteen Famous Pianists" (Bruno H. Repp). An appendix lists DTIC and ERIC numbers for status reports in this series since 1990. (PRA)