Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

No description available.

Despite the fact that phonological awareness (PA) is one of the strongest predictors of reading acquisition, relatively little is known about its origins and development. Theories of spoken word representation and cognitive control were examined to explore the respective roles of linguistic and cognitive factors in the development of PA following debate in the research literature regarding the linguistic versus cognitive basis of PA. Pre-literate, kindergarten children were administered tasks assessing PA, spoken word representation in long-term memory, phonological encoding in working memory, and cognitive control at the beginning and end of the kindergarten year. At the end of grade one, the same children were administered tasks of reading in order to investigate the roles of PA and each of the linguistic and cognitive factors in the development of reading skills. While the ability to phonologically encode spoken words in working memory was a significant predictor of PA, spoken word representation in long-term memory and cognitive control were not causally related to PA. PA was the best predictor of the development of word identification skills in children; however, spoken word representation in long-term memory may play a role in the development of reading comprehension skills. These findings refute the theory of spoken word representation in long-term memory proposed by Walley (1993) and Fowler (1991) and suggest that the causal relationship between cognitive control and PA obtained by Tunmer et al. (1988) may be due to methodological shortcomings in their investigation. Finally, the theory that awareness of an awareness of phonemes arises from the acquisition of reading skills is challenged with the findings that pre-literate phoneme awareness is a significant predictor of reading ability approximately 18 months later. The implications of these findings for the diagnosis of reading disability and reading remediation are discussed.

Thesis (M.A.) in Communication Sciences and Disorders--University of Maine, 2004. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-73).

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, April 30, 1997." Also available in print.

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, April 30, 1998." Also available in print.

No description available.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between metaphonological awareness and spelling ability. Twenty-five children in Kindergarten and Grades One and Two were asked to participate in two tasks of metaphonological awareness, one involving phoneme segmentation (Yopp,1988) and the other phoneme deletion (Rosner,1975). Children were also asked to provide self-generated spelling samples. Spelling samples were then analyzed according to a spelling assessment scheme developed for this study and based on the developmental spelling stages outlined by Beers and Beers (1981) and Gentry (1982). The major finding from this study is that some aspects of metaphonological ability are reliably and moderately related to spelling development. Other findings regard the characteristics of children's spelling errors observed in the course of developing the spelling assessment scheme. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Catharine H. Echols. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.