When learning spoken second language (L2), words overlapping in form and meaning with one's native language (L1) help break into the new language. When nonsigning speakers learn a sign language as L2, such overlaps are absent because of the modality differences (L1: speech, L2: sign). In such cases, nonsigning speakers might use iconic…

Background: Children with speech sound disorders (SSD) form a heterogeneous group, with respect to severity, etiology, proximal causes, speech error characteristics, and response to treatment. Infants develop speech and language in interaction with neurological maturation and general perceptual, motoric, and cognitive skills in a social-emotional…

Although both fathers and mothers speak differently in infant-directed speech (IDS) compared to adult-directed speech (ADS), the acoustic characteristics of present-day paternal IDS are still insufficiently understood. To extend this understanding, 11 fathers and 17 mothers in The Netherlands were recorded interacting with their infant…

Dutch and German employ voicing contrasts, but Dutch lacks the 'voiced' dorsal plosive /g/. We exploited this accidental phonological gap, measuring the presence of prevoicing and voice onset time durations during speech production to determine (1) whether preliterate bilingual Dutch-German and monolingual Dutch-speaking children aged 3;6-6;0…

This eye-tracking study explored how phonological encoding and speech production planning for successive words are coordinated in adult readers with dyslexia (N = 22) and control readers (N = 25) during "rapid automatized naming" (RAN). Using an object-RAN task, we orthogonally manipulated the word-form frequency and phonological…

We investigated age-related decline in adult learning of Dutch as an additional language (Ln) in speaking, writing, listening, and reading proficiency test scores for 56,024 adult immigrants with 50 L1s who came to the Netherlands for study or work. Performance for all four language skills turned out to decline monotonically after an age of…

Despite the fact that many of the world's languages use lexical tone, the majority of language acquisition studies has focused on non-tone languages. Research on tone languages has typically investigated wellknown tone languages such as Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese. The current study looked at a Limburgian dialect of Dutch that uses lexical…

This study investigated to what extent the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-4) is a reliable tool for measuring vocabulary knowledge of English as a second language (L2), and to what extent L1 characteristics affect test outcomes. The PPVT-4 was administered to Dutch pupils in six different age groups (4-15 years old) who were or were not…

This study investigates the pitch properties of infant-directed speech (IDS) specific to word-learning contexts in which mothers introduce unfamiliar words to children. Using a semi-spontaneous story-book telling task, we examined (1) whether mothers made distinctions between unfamiliar and familiar words with pitch in IDS compared to…

Although toddlers in their 2nd year of life generally have phonologically detailed representations of words, a consistent lack of sensitivity to certain kinds of phonological changes has been reported. The origin of these insensitivities is poorly understood, and uncovering their cause is crucial for obtaining a complete picture of early…

Purpose: This study assessed whether a categorical speech perception (CP) deficit is associated with dyslexia or familial risk for dyslexia, by exploring a possible cascading relation from speech perception to phonology to reading and by identifying whether speech perception distinguishes familial risk (FR) children with dyslexia (FRD) from those…

Infants are thought to be sensitive to frequency in the input as a cue for phonological development. However, linguistic biases such as phonological markedness have been argued to play a role too. Since frequency and markedness are correlated, the two assertions could be different interpretations of data that confound frequency and markedness. In…

In the current study, we examined the developmental course of the perception of non-native tonal contrast. We tested 4, 6 and 12-month-old Dutch infants on their discrimination of Chinese low-rising tone and low-dipping tone using the visual fixation paradigm. The infants were tested in two conditions that differed in terms of degree of…

This longitudinal randomized trial study investigated the effects of phonological specificity training on second language (L2) vocabulary learning. Eighty-six Dutch secondary-school students participated in one of two experimental conditions or in an animacy judgment (active control) condition. Participants in the phonological specificity training…

The present study aimed to explore the nature of developmental dyslexia in a language considered to have a transparent orthography, namely, Dutch. We assessed the accuracy and efficiency of decoding words and pseudowords with four lengths as well as three types of phonological ability in 2,760 typical children and 397 peers with dyslexia across…