Introduction: The perception of syllable stress has not been widely studied in developmental dyslexia, despite strong evidence for auditory rhythmic perceptual difficulties. Here we investigate the hypothesis that perception of sound rise time is related to the perception of syllable stress in adults with developmental dyslexia. Methods: A…

The aim of this study was to examine if specific skills that are developed during preschool years could predict the reading performance in the first and second grade of primary school. Two hundred and eighty-seven children participated in this longitudinal study. At the kindergarten level, phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatised naming,…

This article, based on my PhD empirical study, was conducted in a qualitative and holistic approach. It had examined how students had used formal and informal strategies, styles and situations while improvising and composing for the research task. Eighteen research groups made up of a total of 40 males and nine females had participated in…

Considering the contradictory research on explicit teaching of suprasegmentals, the present study aims to investigate the effects of explicit instruction of L2 English learners' perception of prosodically ambiguous intonation patterns, as well as the possible effects of reported musical familiarity on intonation acquisition. A control group and a…

Intonation is the melody and soul of speech, and plays an important role in oral communication. Nevertheless, the acquisition of English intonation by Chinese EFL learners is far from being satisfactory. It is found by empirical study that the main problems existing in acquiring English rising tone are improper placement of nucleus stress, failure…

Auditory processing capabilities at the subcortical level have been hypothesized to impact an individual's development of both language and reading abilities. The present study examined whether auditory processing capabilities relate to language development in healthy 9-month-old infants. Participants were 71 infants (31 boys and 40 girls) with…

The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' practices and beliefs related to the teaching of stringed instrument tuning in elementary and middle school group classes. The aspects examined included the following: (a) teachers' beliefs about teaching tuning in their string classes, (b) activities teachers used when teaching tuning in string…

There is now a strong evidence base from theory and research providing a "template" to inform practice at Wave 2, guiding the design and implementation of time-limited effective early intervention programmes for pupils identified as "at risk" of reading difficulties following initial literacy instruction (Rose, 2009). In…

This study focused on the associations of general auditory processing, speech perception, phonological awareness and word reading in Cantonese-speaking children from Hong Kong learning to read both Chinese (first language [L1]) and English (second language [L2]). Children in Grades 2--4 ("N" = 133) participated and were administered…

Research has demonstrated that focused perceptual training facilitates L2 learners' segmental perception and spoken word identification. Hardison (2003) and Motohashi-Saigo and Hardison (2009) found benefits of visual cues in the training for acquisition of L2 contrasts. The present study examined factors affecting perception and production…

Spivey, Grosjean, and Knoblich (2005) reported smoothly curved reaching movements, via computer-mouse tracking, which suggested a continuously evolving flow of distributed lexical activation patterns into motor movement during a phonological competitor task. For example, when instructed to click the "candy," participants' mouse-cursor trajectories…

While the importance of phonological sensitivity for understanding reading acquisition and impairment across orthographies is well documented, what underlies deficits in phonological sensitivity is not well understood. Some researchers have argued that speech perception underlies variability in phonological representations. Others have…

Dichotic listening experiments show a right-ear advantage (REA), reflecting a left-hemisphere (LH) dominance. However, we found a decrease in REA when the initial stop consonants of two simultaneous French CVC words differed in voicing rather than place of articulation (Experiment 1). This result suggests that the right hemisphere (RH) is more…

This study was designed to ascertain musicians' tempo and pitch level preferences when listening to orchestral music. Ninety graduate and undergraduate music major students were assigned randomly to one of three groups. Participants listened individually to recorded symphonic excerpts, 5 with relatively fast and 5 with relatively slow tempos.…

The development of executive functions in the preschool years is not fully understood. Although there exists a large body of research investigating the maturation of executive functioning in school-aged children, little is known about the emergence of such skills, in particular inhibition, among preschool-aged children. Understanding developmental…