Purpose: The ultimate goal of aphasia therapy should be to achieve gains in function that generalize to untrained exemplars and daily conversation. Anomia is one of the most disabling features of aphasia. The predominantly lexical/semantic approaches used to treat anomia have low potential for generalization due to the orthogonality of semantic…

Bilingual children with a limited command of the second language (L2) often yield unsatisfactory results in L2-based non-word repetition tasks (NWRT) for the assessment of working memory. In this study, monolinguals (MO) and bilinguals (BI) of preschool age acquiring German were compared in regard to their performance on German-based NWRT to…

Previous studies on spoken word production have shown that native English speakers used phoneme-sized units (e.g., a word-initial phoneme, C) to produce English words, and native Mandarin Chinese speakers employed syllable-sized units (e.g., a word-initial consonant and vowel, CV) as phonological encoding units in Chinese. With spoken word…

The present project is a research-based and practice-tested online synchronous curriculum for English language learners with the Russian language mother tongue. The curriculum's theoretical component is grounded in Vygotsky's, Leont'ev', and Engestrom's "Cultural Historical Activity Theory" as well as in scholarly papers on the influence…

The development of beginning decoding and encoding skills is influenced by linguistic skills as well as executive functions (EFs). These higher-level cognitive processes include working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility, and individual differences in these EFs have been shown to contribute to early academic learning. The present study…

This dissertation investigated how a bilingual's experiences can affect how their first language pronunciation can differ from monolingual speakers of their two languages. We used a methodology incorporating quantitative phonetic measurements of voice onset time and vowel formants, grammar and vocabulary tests, and qualitative measures of language…

Background: Previous research has suggested that speech perception in elderly adults is influenced not only by age-related hearing loss or presbycusis but also by declines in cognitive abilities, by background noise and by the syntactic complexity of the message. Aims: To gain further insight into the influence of these cognitive as well as…

This study investigated the pronunciation problems of Turkish EFL learners in state schools in Girne, TRNC. The researcher collected data through a pronunciation test and school visitations. The performance of thirty participants was video-recorded. In order to increase the validity of the results, two native raters listened to the recordings and…

In this study, we examined the learning of letter-speech sound correspondences within an artificial script and performed an experimental analysis of letter-speech sound learning among dyslexic and normal readers vis-à-vis phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, reading, and spelling. Participants were provided with 20 min of training…

This study reports the dimensionality and measurement invariance of a modified version of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for Preschoolers (PALS PreK). Practical constraints of conducting child assessments created an opportunity to develop a modified PALS PreK. The sample consisted of 1,168 children tested in a Southwestern state in…

Purpose: Computer simulation was used to estimate the statistical properties of searches for maximum word recognition ability (PB max). These involve presenting multiple lists and discarding all scores but that of the 1 list that produced the highest score. The simulations, which model limitations inherent in the precision of word recognition…

Beginning with the classic work of Shepard, Hovland, & Jenkins (1961), Type II visual patterns (e.g., exemplars are large white squares OR small black triangles) have held a special place in investigations of human learning. Recent research on Type II "linguistic" patterns has shown that they are relatively frequent across languages…

Oral deaf children and hearing children with dyslexia both experience literacy challenges, although their reasons differ. The authors explored the problems underlying poor literacy in each group and drew implications for reading interventions. Data were collected using standardized literacy and phonological measures from 69 severe-to-profoundly…

A body of previous work in second- and foreign language pronunciation instruction (e.g., Lord, 2005; Miller, 2012) has shown that explicit phonetic and pronunciation instruction is beneficial. However, Olson (2014) noted that just a few minutes per week of instruction are devoted to pronunciation in most classrooms. What is the effect of such…

The authors emphasize the importance of cultivating autonomous motivation for literacy in early childhood by supporting students' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness while building foundational skills. Additionally, the authors highlight four key findings specific to early childhood (pre-K-2) literacy development:…