Listening is widely regarded as the predominant language proficiency utilized in virtually all forms of communication. However, its intricacies often engender feelings of complexity and, at times, provoke anxiety and frustration among both foreign and second-language learners. The enhancement of successful communication fundamentally hinges upon…

The "primacy of reading" hypothesis as the explanation for the high correlation between children's competencies in literacy and numeracy is rejected in this paper. Instead, a "primacy of speech perception" hypothesis is examined. It is suggested that analysis-by-synthesis speech recognition procedures are acquired in early childhood and that the…