Administered phonological awareness and phoneme identification tasks to dyslexic children and chronological age (CA) and reading-level (RL) comparison groups. Found no real differences in categorical perception between dyslexic and RL groups; however, more dyslexics (7 of 25) had abnormal identification functions. Results suggest that some…

"Sine-wave speech" sentences contain only four frequency-modulated sine waves, lacking many acoustic cues present in natural speech. Adults with (n=19) and without (n=14) dyslexia were asked to reproduce orally sine-wave utterances in successive trials. Results suggest comprehension of sine-wave sentences is impaired in some adults with…

The commentary to EC 232 373 and EC 232 374 discusses whether stuttering is really what the listener perceives, the stutterer senses, or the dictionary states. It concludes that stuttering can probably be defined in appropriate contexts as any or all of these three things. (JDD)

This paper examines the case for modality specificity as a criterion for improving the specificity of diagnosing central auditory processing disorders. Demonstrating the modality-specific nature of sensory processing deficits is seen as one way to rule out nonperceptual factors as explanations for observed dysfunction. (Author)

Examines the development of a computational model of auditory grouping processes informed by psychoacoustic experimentation. The experimental theme was to quantify the contribution of grouping principles, rather than simply to demonstrate their existence. This article demonstrates the importance of avoiding prespecified procedures for grouping…

The elicitation and habituation of electrodermal orienting responses to auditory stimuli of 19 children with Down syndrome (DS) and a control group were compared. The DS children gave electrodermal orienting responses of a lower amplitude than did control subjects. No significant differences were found in either skin conductance levels or…

This article reviews auditory deprivation effects on anatomy, physiology, and behavior in animals and discusses the sequelae of otitis media with effusion (OME) in children. Focused on are central auditory processing disorders associated with early fluctuating hearing loss from OME. (DB)

This examination of the auditory perceptual abilities of 40 children, ages 4-10, and 10 adults found significant differences between the performances of the 4- to 8-year olds and of the adults. Acquisition of adultlike duration discrimination performance was demonstrated between the ages of 8 and 10 years. (Author/JDD)

This study of 14 children (ages 5-9) with a history of otitis media with effusion found that subjects had significantly reduced masking-level differences (MLD) compared to controls. Results suggest that the reduction in MLD may be related to abnormal brainstem processing. (Author/JDD)

Physical aspects of listening skills are described, including speech rate, syllable tone, word-word separation vs. joining, listening for "focus," word clues per message, and intonation. (LB)

Three experiments with young children and adults were performed to examine the development of frequency selectivity and to attempt to separate peripheral versus central contributions to frequency selectivity. Results suggested that the shallow notched-noise, fixed-masker-level functions of four-year-old children are probably a result of poor…

The ILO92 was used to determine the level of Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions (DPOAEs) at 2f1-f2 for 16 combinations of primary levels in the range of 40 to 80 dB SPL from 40 unimpaired adult ears. An overall increase of DPOAE amplitude with increase in primary level was observed. (Author/CR)

Examines tone perception in Mambila, a Benue-Congo language with four level lexical tones. A categorization experiment was run to determine some of the salient aspects of the perceptual nature of these tones. Results are discussed in light of what is known about universal tendencies of tone systems and the historical development of the Mambila…

This study examined the test-retest reliability of SCAN, a popular screening test for determining the possible presence of a central auditory processing disorder in children. Testing and retesting using a six- to seven-week interval with 25 first-grade and 22 third-grade children found significant improvement from test to retest for both grades.…

Two studies examined the ability of typically developing children and children with phonological disorders to discriminate consonant-vowel- consonant words that differ only in the final consonant in whole word and gated conditions. Results suggest there is a complex relationship among word learning skills, ability to attend to fine phonetic…