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Usha Goswami - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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language universal sensory deficits in developmental dyslexia english spanish and chinese
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2011Co-Authors: Usha Goswami, H Sharon L Wang, Natasha Mead, Tim Fosker, Alicia De La Cruz, Martina HussAbstract:Studies in sensory neuroscience reveal the critical importance of accurate sensory perception for cognitive development. There is considerable debate concerning the possible sensory correlates of Phonological processing, the primary cognitive risk factor for developmental dyslexia. Across languages, children with dyslexia have a specific difficulty with the neural representation of the Phonological Structure of speech. The identification of a robust sensory marker of Phonological difficulties would enable early identification of risk for developmental dyslexia and early targeted intervention. Here, we explore whether Phonological processing difficulties are associated with difficulties in processing acoustic cues to speech rhythm. Speech rhythm is used across languages by infants to segment the speech stream into words and syllables. Early difficulties in perceiving auditory sensory cues to speech rhythm and prosody could lead developmentally to impairments in phonology. We compared matched samples of children with and without dyslexia, learning three very different spoken and written languages, English, Spanish, and Chinese. The key sensory cue measured was rate of onset of the amplitude envelope (rise time), known to be critical for the rhythmic timing of speech. Despite Phonological and orthographic differences, for each language, rise time sensitivity was a significant predictor of Phonological awareness, and rise time was the only consistent predictor of reading acquisition. The data support a language-universal theory of the neural basis of developmental dyslexia on the basis of rhythmic perception and syllable segmentation. They also suggest that novel remediation strategies on the basis of rhythm and music may offer benefits for Phonological and linguistic development.
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rise time and formant transition duration in the discrimination of speech sounds the ba wa distinction in developmental dyslexia
Developmental Science, 2011Co-Authors: Usha Goswami, Natasha Mead, Martina Huss, Tim Fosker, Denes SzucsAbstract:: Across languages, children with developmental dyslexia have a specific difficulty with the neural representation of the sound Structure (Phonological Structure) of speech. One likely cause of their difficulties with phonology is a perceptual difficulty in auditory temporal processing (Tallal, 1980). Tallal (1980) proposed that basic auditory processing of brief, rapidly successive acoustic changes is compromised in dyslexia, thereby affecting phonetic discrimination (e.g. discriminating /b/ from /d/) via impaired discrimination of formant transitions (rapid acoustic changes in frequency and intensity). However, an alternative auditory temporal hypothesis is that the basic auditory processing of the slower amplitude modulation cues in speech is compromised (Goswami et al., 2002). Here, we contrast children's perception of a synthetic speech contrast (ba/wa) when it is based on the speed of the rate of change of frequency information (formant transition duration) versus the speed of the rate of change of amplitude modulation (rise time). We show that children with dyslexia have excellent phonetic discrimination based on formant transition duration, but poor phonetic discrimination based on envelope cues. The results explain why phonetic discrimination may be allophonic in developmental dyslexia (Serniclaes et al., 2004), and suggest new avenues for the remediation of developmental dyslexia.
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the effects of spelling consistency on Phonological awareness a comparison of english and german
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2005Co-Authors: Usha Goswami, Ulla Richardson, Johannes C ZieglerAbstract:Within alphabetic languages, spelling-to-sound consistency can differ dramatically. For example, English and German are very similar in their Phonological and orthographic Structure but not in their consistency. In English the letter a is pronounced differently in the words bank, ball, and park, whereas in German the letter a always has the same pronunciation (e.g., Ball, Park, Bank). It is often argued that reading acquisition has a reciprocal effect on Phonological awareness. As reading is acquired, therefore, spoken language representation may be affected differently for English and German children. Prior to literacy acquisition, however, Phonological representation in English and German children should be similar due to the similar Phonological Structure of the two languages. We explored this hypothesis by comparing Phonological awareness at the rime and phoneme levels in prereaders and beginning readers in English and German. Similar developmental effects were indeed observed in prereaders, but differential effects had emerged within the first year of reading instruction.
Ulla Richardson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the effects of spelling consistency on Phonological awareness a comparison of english and german
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2005Co-Authors: Usha Goswami, Ulla Richardson, Johannes C ZieglerAbstract:Within alphabetic languages, spelling-to-sound consistency can differ dramatically. For example, English and German are very similar in their Phonological and orthographic Structure but not in their consistency. In English the letter a is pronounced differently in the words bank, ball, and park, whereas in German the letter a always has the same pronunciation (e.g., Ball, Park, Bank). It is often argued that reading acquisition has a reciprocal effect on Phonological awareness. As reading is acquired, therefore, spoken language representation may be affected differently for English and German children. Prior to literacy acquisition, however, Phonological representation in English and German children should be similar due to the similar Phonological Structure of the two languages. We explored this hypothesis by comparing Phonological awareness at the rime and phoneme levels in prereaders and beginning readers in English and German. Similar developmental effects were indeed observed in prereaders, but differential effects had emerged within the first year of reading instruction.
Martina Huss - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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language universal sensory deficits in developmental dyslexia english spanish and chinese
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2011Co-Authors: Usha Goswami, H Sharon L Wang, Natasha Mead, Tim Fosker, Alicia De La Cruz, Martina HussAbstract:Studies in sensory neuroscience reveal the critical importance of accurate sensory perception for cognitive development. There is considerable debate concerning the possible sensory correlates of Phonological processing, the primary cognitive risk factor for developmental dyslexia. Across languages, children with dyslexia have a specific difficulty with the neural representation of the Phonological Structure of speech. The identification of a robust sensory marker of Phonological difficulties would enable early identification of risk for developmental dyslexia and early targeted intervention. Here, we explore whether Phonological processing difficulties are associated with difficulties in processing acoustic cues to speech rhythm. Speech rhythm is used across languages by infants to segment the speech stream into words and syllables. Early difficulties in perceiving auditory sensory cues to speech rhythm and prosody could lead developmentally to impairments in phonology. We compared matched samples of children with and without dyslexia, learning three very different spoken and written languages, English, Spanish, and Chinese. The key sensory cue measured was rate of onset of the amplitude envelope (rise time), known to be critical for the rhythmic timing of speech. Despite Phonological and orthographic differences, for each language, rise time sensitivity was a significant predictor of Phonological awareness, and rise time was the only consistent predictor of reading acquisition. The data support a language-universal theory of the neural basis of developmental dyslexia on the basis of rhythmic perception and syllable segmentation. They also suggest that novel remediation strategies on the basis of rhythm and music may offer benefits for Phonological and linguistic development.
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rise time and formant transition duration in the discrimination of speech sounds the ba wa distinction in developmental dyslexia
Developmental Science, 2011Co-Authors: Usha Goswami, Natasha Mead, Martina Huss, Tim Fosker, Denes SzucsAbstract:: Across languages, children with developmental dyslexia have a specific difficulty with the neural representation of the sound Structure (Phonological Structure) of speech. One likely cause of their difficulties with phonology is a perceptual difficulty in auditory temporal processing (Tallal, 1980). Tallal (1980) proposed that basic auditory processing of brief, rapidly successive acoustic changes is compromised in dyslexia, thereby affecting phonetic discrimination (e.g. discriminating /b/ from /d/) via impaired discrimination of formant transitions (rapid acoustic changes in frequency and intensity). However, an alternative auditory temporal hypothesis is that the basic auditory processing of the slower amplitude modulation cues in speech is compromised (Goswami et al., 2002). Here, we contrast children's perception of a synthetic speech contrast (ba/wa) when it is based on the speed of the rate of change of frequency information (formant transition duration) versus the speed of the rate of change of amplitude modulation (rise time). We show that children with dyslexia have excellent phonetic discrimination based on formant transition duration, but poor phonetic discrimination based on envelope cues. The results explain why phonetic discrimination may be allophonic in developmental dyslexia (Serniclaes et al., 2004), and suggest new avenues for the remediation of developmental dyslexia.
Falk Huettig - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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examining strains and symptoms of the literacy virus the effects of orthographic transparency on Phonological processing in a connectionist model of reading
Conference Cognitive Science, 2014Co-Authors: Alastair Charles Smith, Padraic Monaghan, Falk HuettigAbstract:Examining strains and symptoms of the ‘Literacy Virus’: The effects of orthographic transparency on Phonological processing in a connectionist model of reading Alastair C. Smith (alastair.smith@mpi.nl) Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, Nijmegen, 6525 XD, The Netherlands Padraic Monaghan (p.monaghan@lancaster.ac.uk) Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YF, U.K. Falk Huettig (falk.huettig@mpi.nl) Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, Nijmegen, 6525 XD, The Netherlands Abstract The effect of literacy on Phonological processing has been described in terms of a virus that “infects all speech processing” (Frith, 1998). Empirical data has established that literacy leads to changes to the way in which Phonological information is processed. Harm & Seidenberg (1999) demonstrated that a connectionist network trained to map between English orthographic and Phonological representations display’s more componential Phonological processing than a network trained only to stably represent the Phonological forms of words. Within this study we use a similar model yet manipulate the transparency of orthographic-to-Phonological mappings. We observe that networks trained on a transparent orthography are better at restoring phonetic features and phonemes. However, networks trained on non-transparent orthographies are more likely to restore corrupted Phonological segments with legal, coarser linguistic units (e.g. onset, coda). Our study therefore provides an explicit description of how differences in orthographic transparency can lead to varying strains and symptoms of the ‘literacy virus’. Keywords: Connectionist Modeling, Reading, Literacy, Spoken word recognition. Introduction There is a well-established link between the acquisition of literacy and changes to the manner in which Phonological information is processed. Children’s awareness of the Phonological Structure of words has been shown to improve qualitatively and quantitatively when exposed to literacy training (e.g. Alcock, Ngorosho, Deus, & Jukes, 2010; Hulme et al., 2005). Critically, similar improvements have been recorded in adults who receive literacy training later in life (e.g. Morais, 1979), indicating that changes in Phonological processing are consequent upon literacy and not due to extended language exposure or other developmental factors. Literacy training has also been shown to relate to improvements in categorical perception of speech sounds (Serniclaes et al., 2005). Participants who were literate indicated a sharper boundary in judging syllables along a ba-da continuum, compared to illiterates. Further, effects of orthography on speech perception have been reported widely using varying tasks (Taft et al., 2008; Pattamadilok et al., 2009; Peereman et al., 2009), languages (Ventura et al., 2004; Zeigler et al., 2008) and orthographic manipulations (Orthographic Neighborhood: Zeigler et al., 2003; Orthographic Consistency: Zeigler et al., 2004). Many of these previous studies have investigated effects of literacy on Phonological processing by manipulating the properties of the Phonological form of the word. In addition, recent evidence from studies of language-mediated visual attention has linked literacy to changes in the granularity of online speech processing without requiring explicit operations on the Phonological Structure of the word (Huettig, Singh & Mishra, 2011; Smith, Monaghan & Huettig, 2013). In eye-tracking behavioral studies, and computational models of the effects, they found that literate, but not illiterate participants, demonstrated Phonological cohort effects on visual search of objects with similar names, but equivalent levels of co-activation of visual search of objects with similar meanings. These studies suggest a broader impact of literacy-related changes to Phonological processing that extends to language processes that interface with visual systems. Brain imaging data provides further support for changes to Phonological processing as a consequence of literacy training, suggesting both an influence of activation in orthographic processing regions when processing speech (Dehaene et al., 2010) and a restructuring of Phonological processing regions (Perre et al., 2009, 2011; Pattamadilok et al., 2010). Computational modelling studies offer a means by which mechanisms that drive such effects can be isolated. Harm & Seidenberg (1999) captured explicitly the emergent effects of learning orthographic-to-Phonological mappings on Phonological representations in a connectionist model of reading. They trained a model that learned to stably represent the Phonological forms of a large set of English
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strains and symptoms of the literacy virus modelling the effects of orthographic transparency on Phonological processing
the 20th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Conference (AMLAP 2014), 2014Co-Authors: Alastair Charles Smith, Padraic Monaghan, Falk HuettigAbstract:The effect of literacy on Phonological processing has been described as analogous to a virus that “infects all speech processing” (Frith, 1998). Behavioural data has shown that exposure to literacy training in alphabetic languages coincides with both qualitative and quantitative improvements in the awareness of the Phonological Structure of words. Recent brain imaging data indicates that such behaviour may result from a restructuring of Phonological processing networks as a consequence of learning to read an alphabetic language. Harm & Seidenberg (1999) present a computational model of reading that provides an explicit description of how such Phonological restructuring may occur. They showed that connectionist networks trained to map between English orthographic and Phonological representations displayed more componential Phonological processing than networks trained only to stably represent the Phonological forms of English words. This model and processing level models such as Psycholinguistic Grain Size Theory (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005) predict that systems trained on alphabetic languages will develop more componential processing due to the systematic relationships that exist between the letters of the language and corresponding speech sounds.
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modelling the effects of formal literacy training on language mediated visual attention
Cognitive Science, 2013Co-Authors: Alastair Charles Smith, Padraic Monaghan, Falk HuettigAbstract:Recent empirical evidence suggests that language-mediated eye gaze is partly determined by level of formal literacy training. Huettig, Singh and Mishra (2011) showed that high-literate individuals' eye gaze was closely time locked to Phonological overlap between a spoken target word and items presented in a visual display. In contrast, low-literate individuals' eye gaze was not related to Phonological overlap, but was instead strongly influenced by semantic relationships between items. Our present study tests the hypothesis that this behavior is an emergent property of an increased ability to extract Phonological Structure from the speech signal, as in the case of high-literates, with low-literates more reliant on more coarse grained Structure. This hypothesis was tested using a neural network model, that integrates linguistic information extracted from the speech signal with visual and semantic information within a central resource. We demonstrate that contrasts in fixation behavior similar to those observed between high and low literates emerge when models are trained on speech signals of contrasting granularity.
Emily Lamont - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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working memory and Phonological awareness as predictors of progress towards early learning goals at school entry
British Journal of Development Psychology, 2005Co-Authors: Tracy Packiam Alloway, Susan E Gathercole, Annemarie Adams, Catherine Willis, Rachel Eaglen, Emily LamontAbstract:This study investigates whether working memory skills of children are related to teacher ratings of their progress towards learning goals at the time of school entry, at 4 or 5 years of age. A sample of 194 children was tested on measures of working memory, Phonological awareness, and non-verbal ability, in addition to the school-based baseline assessments in the areas of reading, writing, mathematics, speaking and listening, and personal and social development. Various aspects of cognitive functioning formed unique associations with baseline assessments; for example complex memory span with rated writing skills, Phonological short-term memory with both reading and speaking and listening skills, and sentence repetition scores with both mathematics and personal and social skills. Rated reading skills were also uniquely associated with Phonological awareness scores. The findings indicate that the capacity to store and process material over short periods of time, referred to as working memory, and also the awareness of Phonological Structure, may play a crucial role in key learning areas for children at the beginning of formal education.