This study investigates whether developmental dyslexia involves an impairment in implicit phonological representations, as distinct from orthographic representations and metaphonological skills. A group of adults with dyslexia was matched with a group with no history of speech/language/literacy impairment. Tasks varied in the demands made on…

Previous studies have shown that preschool bilingual children lag behind same-aged monolinguals in their production of correct past tense forms. This lag has been attributed to bilinguals' less frequent exposure to either language. If so, bilingual children acquire the past tense like monolinguals, only later. In this study, we compared the…

Recent studies of heritage speakers, many of whom possess incomplete knowledge of their family language, suggest that these speakers may be linguistically superior to second language (L2) learners only in phonology but not in morphosyntax. This study reexamines this claim by focusing on knowledge of clitic pronouns and word order in 24 L2 learners…

In the current study, we explore the influence of orthographic knowledge on phonological awareness in children with cochlear implants and compare developmental associations to those found for hearing children matched for word reading level or chronological age. We show an influence of orthographic knowledge on syllable and phoneme awareness in…

The influence of development and literacy upon syllabification in French was evaluated by comparing the segmental behavior of 4- to 5-year-old preliterate children and adults using a pause insertion task. Participants were required to repeat bisyllabic words such as "fourmi" ("ant") by inserting a pause between its two syllabic components…

Evidence that the abilities to repeat nonwords and to learn language are very closely related to one another has led to widespread interest in the cognitive processes underlying nonword repetition. One suggestion is that nonword repetition is a relatively pure measure of phonological short-term memory closely associated with other measures of…

Two aphasics with a similar level of phonological production difficulty are compared to distinguish the properties of disruption to two stages in the phonological system for producing single words: activation of stored lexical-phonological representations versus construction of phonemic representations. A set of distinguishing behavioral features…

Speech sound production changes occurring during acquisition of initial voice contrast by phonologically disordered children were compared with those occurring with normal children by analyzing target stop productions along the temporal measure of voice onset time (VOT). Phonologically disordered subjects displayed different patterns of voice…

Studied the phonological representations of adult less skilled readers compared to those of adult skilled readers and adolescent reading-age controls. Participants were tested on a paired confrontation naming and spelling task. Results confirm that there are weaknesses in the phonological representations of known and new words for adult less…

Tested the prediction that phonemic analysis skills develop as a consequence of reading instruction. The results of a series of phonological tasks that assessed children's sensitivity to subsyllabic onset and rime units, and to phonemes are described. (55 references) (GLR)

The hypothesis investigated is that children with a reading disability understand and use sound-spelling correspondence rules less frequently in spelling than children with other learning disabilities (arithmetic disability) and normally achieving children. Results showed that subtypes of learning-disabled children use spelling strategies that are…

To determine whether written spelling is superior to oral spelling for children in kindergarten through Grade 2, this study compared children's ability to spell real words and nonsense words orally and in writing. By first and second grade, written spellings were superior to oral spellings in both overall quality and representation of phonological…

To examine possible explanations of reported inaccuracies of children with specific language impairment (SLI) on nonword repetition, study compared repetitions of 54 SLI children and peers for number and type of error, latency, and duration of response. Found no evidence of differences between groups in auditory discrimination or response…

Analyzes the nature of Down's syndrome children's articulation problems, including the phonetic inventory of each subject; a comparison of target consonant phonemes and the subjects' renditions of these phonemes; and a characterization of the subjects' errors in terms of phonological processes. Finally, discusses three major findings emerging from…

Examines phonemic-awareness ability of reading-disabled children and normally-achieving children in both a traditional design and a pseudoword reading-level-match design. Results show that a group of reading-disabled children who show typical pseudoword reading and phonemic-awareness deficits in the traditional reading-level-match design…