Used data from infants in operant head-turning procedure to examine effects of structure and redundancy of speech context on discovery of two target syllables. Clustering strategy, which presupposes basic element of perception and aggregates these elements to form units, may complement bracketing strategy, which presupposes endpoint cues and…

Examined 18-month olds' intermodal and verbal knowledge about gender. Presented photos of adults or children paired with a female or male voice, or with gender labels. With adult pictures, subjects spent more time looking at pictures with matching voices than at those with mismatched voices. With children's pictures, subjects failed to match faces…

Compares the music-teaching methods of Maurice Martenot and Edgar Willems, used widely in Spain and Portugal, by applying a revised comparative model to both methods. Concludes that both methods have solid values relating to the development of aural perception. Suggests areas for further research. (DSK)

Two experiments tested whether newborns could discriminate their own and another newborn's cry. Results indicated that awake newborns expressed facial distress more frequently and longer to another newborn's cry than to their own. Sucking decreased significantly between pretest phase and first minute of another infant's cry. Asleep infants'…

This study sought to find an efficient and optimal sound format for the development of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in the network environment and to provide some useful suggestions to the developers of CALL software who are interested in optimizing performance while maintaining an appropriate sound quality in the network…

A study, including research and practice notes by various authors, investigated whether extended training in an acoustically rich environment could enhance the spatial updating ability of 12 adults with congenital blindness. After training, the adults' distance perception from a home-base location and novel locations was superior to a sighted…

Critiques scholars who argue that theories of music and theories of musical perception are, and should be, fundamentally different. Reviews research on music perception and how it is used in aural training programs. Makes suggestions for improving the field of aural training and music-education research. (DSK)

A study examined whether electrophysiologic techniques could identify central auditory processing difficulties in 15 low-achieving gifted adolescents. Results found that P300-wave morphology was significantly poorer for the low-achieving gifted group compared to achieving gifted and nongifted typical groups, but was not different from those with…

This study (with 16 children and 11 adults) examined an alternative to the Developmental Weighting Shift model which explains age-related differences in labeling of speech stimuli as due to increasing experience with word-internal structure. Findings rejected the alternative model, that changes in perceptual weighting strategies are due to…

Examined children's auditory perception of traffic sounds, focusing on identification of vehicle movement. Subjects were 60 children of 5, 8, and 11 years. Results indicated that the auditory perception of movement was a problem area for children, especially five-year olds. Discussed the role of attention-demanding characteristics of some traffic…

A study investigated subjective judgments of clarity and intelligibility in 20 listeners in conditions in which speech was equated for predicted intelligibility but varied in bandwidth. Listeners produced clarity and intelligibility ratings for the same speech material and experimental conditions that were highly related but differed in magnitude.…

This article discusses issues related to auditory integration training (AIT), a developing treatment for children with auditory disorders. It presents preliminary data indicating that word recognition scores in the presence of competing noise improves for children with a variety of disorders who have been treated with AIT. (Author/DB)

Two studies explored the relationship between rapid auditory processing and phonological processing in 82 typical children and compared 17 children with dyslexia to controls. Children with dyslexia performed at a level similar to reading-age controls on auditory processing but obtained scores that were significantly below those of the…

Explored in 2 studies 3- and 4-year-olds' understanding that the 5 senses can each lead to different types of knowledge. Found that 3-year-olds performed significantly poorer than 4-year-olds on all tasks, suggesting a marked transition in children's ability to recognize the origin of their modality-specific knowledge between 3 and 4 years.…

A study examined perceptual-weighting strategies and performance-audibility functions of 11 children with moderate hearing impairments (HI), 11 age-matched peers, 11 adults with moderate HI, and 11 typical adults. Results showed both hearing sensitivity and age effects. Listeners with HI required lower levels of audibility to achieve similar…