A challenge for listeners is to learn the appropriate mapping between acoustics and phonetic categories for an individual talker. Lexically guided perceptual learning (LGPL) studies have shown that listeners can leverage lexical knowledge to guide this process. For instance, listeners learn to interpret ambiguous /s/-/[esh]/ blends as /s/ if they…

Purpose: Generalizations can be made about the order in which speech sounds are added to a child's phonemic inventory and the ways that child speech deviates from adult targets in a given language. Developmental and disordered speech patterns are presumed to reflect differences in both phonological knowledge and skilled motor control, but the…

An extensive research base on beginning reading acquisition and reading difficulties, developed over the past few decades, has important implications for the teaching of reading. Unfortunately, much of this research does not appear to be reaching teachers, whose knowledge is essential for scientific findings about reading to benefit children. This…