Several experiments involving 150 college students and adults provide evidence for top-down lexical to phonemic activation in auditory word processing. Results indicate that lexical activation can cause the perceptual process to synthesize a highly functional phonemic code. (SLD)

Two types of phonological training of children with reading disabilities were compared. Children trained in speech discrimination, letter-sound correspondence, and phonemic awareness (SP/LPA) and children trained only in letter-sound correspondence and phonemic awareness (n=35) improved in phonemic awareness, but only the SP/LPA group scored…

Two online tasks (an auditory same-different task and an auditory lexical decision task) examined the use of phonotactic information by 18 adults with cochlear implants. Cochlear implant patients with better word recognition abilities produced patterns of results similar to results obtained from listeners with normal hearing. (Contains…

This study compared children with either attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (n=24), reading disability (RD) (n=33), both (n=9), or controls. Children with ADHD were characterized by difficulty with a visual search task whereas children with RD had difficulty with an auditory processing task. Specifically, children with ADHD…

The study examined 2 procedures--the ABX Test and the Oddity Task--for assessing the perception of 25 elementary grade phonologically disordered children of their own speech error sounds. Findings indicated both measures were promising and aided in identifying children whose perceptual errors influenced their speech-sound production. (DB)

Reports two experiments which investigated the effect of three pretraining conditions on the discrimination of select pitch patterns. Finds no significant differences among groups but results show a significant age effect. Indicates that providing activities requiring children to compare tonal patterns is at least as effective as vocal repetition…

Argues that evolution of the phonological systems of natural languages and the typology of distinctive features is based on perceptual discontinuities of the auditory system. It is suggested that neonates rely on these innate sensitivities for acquisition of sound systems and that some phonological variation in early child phonology results from…

Results of 6 experiments involving 200 Australian elementary and secondary school students support the hypothesis that negative consequences of the split attention effect in geometry may be ameliorated by presenting geometry statements in auditory rather than visual form. (SLD)

An auditory rhyme detection task was employed to examine orthographic code development in 27 reading-disabled and 27 normally achieving children (ages 7-11 years). It was concluded that children with a reading disability have a lessened ability to automatically access and make available stored lexical information relating to orthography.…

Examined children's monitoring of TV programs for visual content and processing of program content through language. Narration enhanced visual attention and comprehension. Auditory comprehension did not depend on looking. Auditory attention did not differ with the presence or absence of narration. (BC)

This study used a contrasting word task to evaluate the relationship between specific acoustic features of speech and perceptual judgments of word intelligibility of 16 adults with cerebral palsy-dysarthria. The scaled intelligibility was predicted with 62.6 percent accuracy by acoustic measures related to one consonant contrast and three vowel…

Children (ages 6-7 and ages 8-9) and adults participated in real-word and nonword lexical decision tasks and an auditory-vocal reaction time task. Response times on all tasks decreased with age. However, age-related differences on the real-word lexical decision task disappeared when differences in auditory-vocal reaction times were taken into…

Exploration of the role of listening comprehension in facilitating second-language learning includes discussion of the auditory perception of language, listening disadvantages for second-language learners, the need to concentrate on lexical knowledge rather than ear training, minimum word knowledge requirements, and lexical ignorance as a major…

A study used positron emission tomography (PET) to study patterns of brain activation during auditory processing in five high-functioning adults with autism. Results found that participants showed reversed hemispheric dominance during the verbal auditory stimulation and reduced activation of the auditory cortex and cerebellum. (CR)

Examines effects of aural, visual, and combined aural/visual conditions on the emotional response to music and dance of musicians and nonmusicians. Indicates no significant differences in perceived artistic tension based on musical background or on experimental conditions. Responses were similar regardless of prior consideration of the existence…