Most children learn a language such as Mandarin Chinese that uses lexical tone to communicate meaning. This study aimed to examine the phonological specificity of tone representations in monolingual and bilingual learners of Mandarin. Two age-groups were tested: toddlers (2.5 to 3.5 years) and preschoolers (4 to 5 years; N = 80). Using a…

The process by which morphologically complex words are recognized and stored is a matter of ongoing debate. A large body of evidence indicates that complex words are automatically decomposed during visual word recognition in adult readers. Research with developing readers is limited and findings are mixed. This study aimed to investigate…

The present study investigated infants' knowledge about familiar nouns. Infants (n = 46, 12-20-month-olds) saw two-image displays of familiar objects, or one familiar and one novel object. Infants heard either a matching word (e.g. "foot' when seeing foot and juice), a related word (e.g. "sock" when seeing foot and juice) or a nonce…

This study examined how language proficiency and age of acquisition affect a bilingual language user's reliance on the dominant language during lexical access. Two bilingual groups performed a translation recognition task: Mandarin-English classroom bilinguals who acquired their dominant language (Mandarin) from birth and their non-dominant…

A central component of language development is word learning. One characterization of this process is that language learners discover objects and then look for word forms to associate with these objects (Mcnamara, 1984; Smith, 2000). Another possibility is that word forms themselves are also important, such that once learned, hearing a familiar…

Adult literacy training is known to be difficult in terms of teaching and maintenance (Abadzi, 2003), perhaps because adults who recently learned to read in their first language have not acquired reading automaticity. This study examines fast word recognition process in neoliterate adults, to evaluate whether they show evidence of perceptual…

This article presents results from an initial investigation of Greek oral reading fluency and prosody. Although currently held perspectives consider reading the product of reading decoding and reading comprehension, there is enough evidence (both Greek and foreign) to suggest that other variables may affect reading, as well. Such variables include…

The first goal of this study was to examine young children's developing narrative comprehension abilities using theory-based, authentic measures of comprehension processes. The second goal was to examine the relations among young children's comprehension abilities and other early reading skills. Children ages 4 and 6 listened to or watched two…

This study examined temporal processing in relation to Chinese reading acquisition and impairment. The performances of 26 Chinese primary school children with developmental dyslexia on tasks of visual and auditory temporal order judgement, rapid naming, visual-orthographic knowledge, morphological, and phonological awareness were compared with…

Compared retention functions for children with those for young adults and elderly subjects in continuous recognition memory for words over retention intervals ranging from 2 minutes to 2 hours. (SDH)

Three experiments used a visual fixation technique to examine whether toddlers interpret speech continuously. Found that 24-month-olds had delayed responses when a competing distractor picture's label overlapped phonetically with the target at onset, but not when the pictures' labels rhymed, showing that children monitored speech stream…

Reports on a series of four experiments designed to determine more precisely the characteristics of the stage of visual feature analysis of word identification and to examine response competition factors in this interference task. (SB)

First, third, and eighth graders performed four different orienting activities to different words. Under an incidental learning paradigm, the children's recognition was tested after the orienting activity. Age differences in recognition were absent, and the effect of the orienting activity responses on recognition supported depth of processing…

This study uses a search task to investigate the development of word superiority effects in visual perception. Subjects are kindergarten, second and fourth grade children, and college students. (CM)

The false recognition procedure was used to determine the relative dominance of visual and verbal memory organization at two grade levels. The results indicated that visual encoding was predominant for first graders, but that both visual and verbal encoding occurred with fourth graders. (MS)