Weak syllables in Germanic and Romance languages have been reported to be challenging for young children, with syllable omission and/or incomplete reduction persisting till age five. In Mandarin Chinese, neutral tone (T0) involves a weak syllable with varied pitch realizations across (preceding) tonal contexts and short duration. The present study…

We examine whether German children attach an adultlike relevance to the pragmatic category of polarity contrast (e.g., "In my picture the child IS eating the candies" following after "In my picture the child is not eating the candies") with linguistic expressions (i.e., the affirmative particles…

This article describes the development of intonation in 12 cochlear implant (CI) recipients. In a previously reported study of the first year of CI use, children who were implanted late (after 24 months) acquired intonation more rapidly than the younger participants. The older children's advantage is plausibly owing to their greater maturity.…

Neural control of rising and falling tones in Mandarin people who stutter (PWS) was examined by comparing with that which occurs in fluent speakers [Howell, Jiang, Peng, and Lu (2012). Neural control of fundamental frequency rise and fall in Mandarin tones. "Brain and Language, 121"(1), 35-46]. Nine PWS and nine controls were scanned. Functional…

This study examined the extent and nature of lexical tone deficit in Chinese developmental dyslexia. Twenty Cantonese-speaking Chinese dyslexic children (mean age 8 ; 11) were compared to twenty average readers of the same age (CA control group, mean age 8 ; 11), and another twenty younger average readers of the same word reading level (RL control…

Prosodic information, such as word stress and speech rhythm, is important in language acquisition, and sensitivity to stress patterns is present from birth onwards. Exposure to prosodic properties of the native language occurs prenatally. Preterm birth and an associated lack of exposure to prosodic information are suspected to affect language…