Purpose: Robust improvements in intelligibility following familiarization, a listener-targeted perceptual training paradigm, have been revealed for talkers diagnosed with spastic, ataxic, and hypokinetic dysarthria but not for talkers with hyperkinetic dysarthria. While the theoretical explanation for the lack of intelligibility improvement…

Language learners need to map a continuous, multidimensional acoustic signal to discrete abstract speech categories. The complexity of this mapping poses a difficult learning problem, particularly for second language learners who struggle to acquire the speech sounds of a non-native language, and almost never reach native-like ability. A common…

Over the past two decades, neuroscientists have been fascinated by the way the brain processes music. Using new technologies, neuroscientists offer us a better understanding of the human brain's structures and functions. They have further proposed explanatory models for how the brain processes music. While these models shed light on how the…

Traditional pronunciation instruction and instruction in second language (L2) phonetics have been shown to improve learners' L2 accent in some, though certainly not all, cases. Learners in intermediate and advanced Spanish FL courses have shown modest improvement in the pronunciation of some L2 phones after receiving such instruction.…

Based on my own research education courses for doctoral students, I examine the ways in which music provides powerful and rich models for perception, conceptualisation and engagement for both listeners and performers, to cultivate the processes and products of qualitative research in the social science in general, and in music education in…

Developments within education, psychology and the neurosciences have shed a great deal of light on how we learn while, at the same time, confirming for us all that learning is a profoundly complex process and far from understood. Against this background, and in this position article, we consider the recent rise in interest in the concept of…

One of a series of state-of-the-art papers, this monograph focuses upon the reasons for stressing listening in a language arts program. Listening is defined according to six approaches: comparative, ostensive, classificational, structural, operational, and synonymic. Some past and current ideas concerning a taxonomy of listening skills are…

The chapter examines audition and early intervention with hearing impaired infants, the normal development of audition, a model of auditory learning and teaching (involving discrimination, identification, comprehension, and detection), progression along the developmental sequence, natural interactions which aid learning, and parent role. (DB)

Maintaining that educators need a functional understanding of the brain and how it operates in order to teach effectively and to critically analyze the vast amount of neuroscientific information being published, this book provides information on brain-imaging techniques and the anatomy and physiology of the brain. The book also introduces a model…