The ability to map similar sounding words to different meanings alone is far from enough for successful speech processing. To overcome variability in the speech signal, young learners must also recognize words across surface variations. Previous studies have shown that infants at 14 months are able to use variations in word-internal cues (i.e.,…

Successful listening in a second language (L2) involves learning to identify the relevant acoustic-phonetic dimensions that differentiate between words in the L2, and then use these cues to access lexical representations during real-time comprehension. This is a particularly challenging goal to achieve when the relevant acoustic-phonetic…

Auditory processing and spoken word recognition difficulties have been observed in Specific Language Impairment (SLI), raising the possibility that auditory perceptual deficits disrupt word recognition and, in turn, phonological processing and oral language. In this study, fifty-seven kindergarten children with SLI and fifty-three language-typical…

The present article investigates how phonotactic rules constrain oral reading in the Russian language. The pronunciation of letters in Russian is regular and consistent, but it is subject to substantial phonotactic influence: the position of a phoneme and its phonological context within a word can alter its pronunciation. In Part 1 of the article,…

This pilot project investigated the effects of ABRACADABRA (ABRA), a web-based literacy program developed by the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP) at Concordia University, on primary school children in Hong Kong. A total of 125 Primary 2 students participated in a 14-week long study. Five classes were randomly assigned to…

Paired associated learning (PAL) is a critical skill for making arbitrary associations among print, pronunciation and meaning in reading development. Extended from past research of PAL, this study investigated whether PAL operated flexibly to linguistic demands of languages, by examining word reading abilities in Chinese-English bilingual…

This paper consists of three studies. The first study aimed to identify sub-types of students with learning disabilities in reading. Based on the dual-route model of reading, words may be read using either a lexical (words are recognized as wholes) or a sub-lexical (words are recognized through grapheme-phoneme correspondence) procedure. Castles…

Phonological awareness has been repeatedly reported as important for learning to read in different orthographies. It is important to understand what specific levels of phonological awareness are involved in Chinese and English for Chinese children who learn English-as-a-second-language (ESL). Measures of phonological awareness, word reading,…

This study examined the overlap of dyslexia and specific language impairment (SLI) in Cantonese-Chinese-speaking children. Thirty children with a prior diagnosis of SLI and 9 normal controls, aged between 6;0 and 11;3, participated. The children with SLI were tested for language impairment and dyslexia. Seven retained a diagnosis of SLI but were…

Using data provided by approximately 100 second graders each from Beijing, Hong Kong, Korea, and the United States, we investigated relations among phonological awareness, morphological structure awareness, vocabulary, and word recognition. Our results indicate that across languages, phonological awareness and morphological structure awareness are…