Comparison of 181 children (ages 9-15) in either learning disability (LD), mild mental retardation, or regular education placement on the Durrell Listening-Reading Series found LD children were less delayed in listening than in reading skills, scored higher than children in the mild mental retardation group, and lower than the regular education…

Describes a model that allows children to control the complexity of the speech they hear within conversations on a moment-to-moment basis. Experimental and observational data clearly delineate the reciprocal nature of how speakers "fine-tune" their speech to listeners. The effects of child-directed speech on language development are discussed.…

Notes the importance of developing listening skills through direct instruction. Identifies specific listening skills and suggests how to teach them. Describes how both teachers and students can develop a listening skills curriculum. (MM)

This paper discusses recent research on second-language learning and argues that "prior knowledge" does not necessarily constitute the basis of comprehension in second-language learning, that "comprehended input" does not have to be "learner-controlled," and that "input" and "intake" are not necessarily two fundamentally different phenomena.…

Eighty normally hearing children (ages 4 to 8) judged the clarity of sentences that were systematically bandpass-filtered to increase intelligibility. Study of 10 subjects at each age found that children 5 years or older were able to make reliable clarity judgements using paired comparisons or category rating; however, the method of paired…

Results from 3 experiments in auditory word recognition involving a total of 266 undergraduates supported interactive models of lexical processing, but required additional sublexical processes. The hypothesized sublexical mechanism is fast acting and frequency sensitive and produces top-down effects, but its operation has not yet been fully…

Presents findings of research concerning the relationship between listener response to music and personality variables. Reports that correlations were found among undergraduate music appreciation students between the Music Listener Response Scale and sensing intuition for the entire group and between judgment perception and the scale among…

Study used two experiments to examine the development of children's comprehension of the use of intonation and belief verbs to mark the relative certainty with which a speaker makes a statement. It is argued that children's understanding of prosody will be best revealed in contexts in which they are required to respond to the pragmatic function of…

Offers a unit on direction giving to help students identify effective and ineffective direction giving; become familiar with the preparation and presentation components of sound direction giving; and determine whether the message intended was the massage received. Discusses barriers to listening, misunderstandings, and provides exercises and steps…

Tests competing hypotheses concerning the source of cross-linguistic communication difficulty. Subjects rated four versions of Chinese-produced English discourse for comprehensibility. Results indicated that the effect of discourse miscues on comprehensibility was highly significant, whereas there was no significant effect for order of ideas. (45…

The observed listening performances of 64 children (ages 7-11) with central auditory processing (CAP) disorders were evaluated. Data indicated wide variations in listening performance depending upon the listening conditions and listening functions being rated. Findings suggested that these children had difficulties in both stressful and ideal…

Discusses a classroom where children from many cultures use talk to share and discover the "big" questions in their lives and where the teacher discovers what the critical issues for her and her students really are. (RS)

Describes a study of listener reactions toward the oral language of nonnative English speakers. The potential for discreditation of such speakers by the listener and the need to emphasize oral language in the classroom are discussed. (19 references) (GLR)

Reviews issues relevant to the assessment of a listening comprehension construct and proposes a framework that specifies the person, competence, text, and item domains and components of assessment. Specifications focus on identification of the factors that relate to the purpose, object, and agent of assessment. (41 references) (JP)

This study evaluated whether listeners can distinguish human brainstem auditory evoked responses elicited by acoustic clicks from control waveforms obtained with no acoustic stimulus when the waveforms are presented auditorily. Detection performance for stimuli presented visually was slightly, but consistently, superior to that which occurred for…