Among 30 Hong Kong Chinese fourth graders, sensitivities to character and word constructions were examined in judgment tasks at each level. There were three conditions across both tasks: the real condition, consisting of either actual two-character compound Chinese words or real Chinese compound characters; the reversed condition, with either the…

This study explores incremental processing in spoken word recognition in Russian 5- and 6-year-olds and adults using free-viewing eye-tracking. Participants viewed scenes containing pictures of four familiar objects and clicked on a target embedded in a spoken instruction. In the cohort condition, two object names shared identical three-phoneme…

A set of four experiments investigates the relationship between phonological coding and reading ability, using a picture-word interference task and a decoding task. Results with regard to both adults and children suggest that while poor readers possess weak decoding skills, good and poor readers show equivalent evidence of direct semantic and…

We conducted a longitudinal study examining the role of phonemic awareness, phonological processing, and grammatical skills in the development of reading and spelling abilities in Greek. A battery of cognitive, linguistic, and literacy tasks was administered to 131 primary school children (65 7-year-olds and 66 9-year-olds) and was repeated in the…

Explored the effects of differences between English-language and Chinese numerical systems for naming months and days on calendar calculations. Chinese and U.S. 8- and 10-year olds and undergraduates were asked to name a date coming before or after another given date. Found that Chinese speakers used calculations; English speakers recited names.…

Developmental changes in the interaction between word order and structural cues were investigated. Hebrew-speaking children between 4 and 10 years old interpreted noun-verb-noun utterances. Both word order and structural cues affected interpretation by all subjects, though the role of structural cues increased with age. (Author/DB)