No description available.

This thesis investigated lexical representations of children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS) using a duration-blocked gating task. This thesis tested the hypothesis that children who stutter have underspecified phonological representations for words, are less sensitive to incremental and segmental information for lexical items, and therefore require more acoustic-phonetic information to activate words in their lexicon. Pilot data collected from fourteen children (ages 5;6 to 10;1): 7 CWS and 7 CWNS matched on age were included in this thesis. Results showed that children in both talker groups required relatively equal amounts of acoustic-phonetic information to identify target words. A regression model revealed that age in months predicted performance on the gating task for CWNS, but that age in months did not predict performance on the gating task for CWS suggesting a difference in the developmental maturity of lexical representations in CWS. Possible conclusions from these pilot data are presented along with recommendations for future research. / text

The current study examined the phonological process of prosodic ability in a model of adult word reading and reading comprehension ability. All phonological tasks involve executive functions (EF) reflected in an individual’s flexibility for manipulating different components of language. To account for the EF demands involved in phonological tasks of reading, EF was assessed using measures of inhibitory control and switching attention as both a control variable and predictor in each model of reading. Two research questions guided the study: 1) Do prosodic ability and EF make independent contributions to word reading, and reading comprehension ability when controlling for the other? 2) Do prosodic ability and EF make unique contributions to word reading, and reading comprehension ability when controlling for the other, in addition to controlling for vocabulary, fluid (nonverbal) intelligence, rapid automatized naming (RAN - Digits), and phonological short-term memory (PSTM)? Participants were one hundred and three native-English speaking adults (18 to 55 years of age) recruited from Eastern Ontario. A total of 8 regression models were tested. The analyses revealed unique contributions of prosodic ability in adult word reading achievement, and EF in silent reading comprehension. Prosody’s contribution to word reading above EF supports prosodic awareness as a phonological skill that can be used to explain individual differences in word reading, whereas EF’s contribution to reading comprehension supports its’ role in more complex reading tasks. Prosody and EF represent constructs that warrant future consideration in models of reading. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2013-12-19 16:15:50.64

Introdução: Diversos estudos têm avaliado as vantagens e desvantagens do bilinguismo em uma gama de habilidades humanas. Para se compreender uma língua estrangeira é necessário o desenvolvimento de habilidades específicas que se inicia a partir de uma informação ouvida. Dessa forma, o estudo das habilidades auditivas e fonológicas em bilíngues tem despertado o interesse de diversos pesquisadores nos últimos anos. Objetivo: avaliar habilidades do Processamento Auditivo Central (PAC) de discriminação e ordenação temporal e habilidades do Processamento Fonológico (PF) em bilíngues. Metodologia: 100 estudantes universitários de (graduação e pós-graduação) foram divididos em dois grupos: Grupo Bilíngue (GB n=50) e Grupo Monolíngue (GM n=50), de acordo com classificação do Quadro Europeu Comum de Referência para as Línguas. Foram considerados bilíngues os participantes classificados como: Independente ou proficiente (B1, B2, C1, C2) e que tivessem certificado em curso formal de língua inglesa ou permanência por dois anos em países deste idioma. Foram considerados monolíngues, participantes inseridos nos níveis A1 e A2 ou que não possuíssem competências previstas nestes itens. As habilidades do PF (consciência fonológica - CF, memória de trabalho fonológica - MTF e acesso rápido ao léxico - RAN) tanto do português quanto em idioma inglês e habilidades do PAC (discriminação e ordenação temporal de duração - TPD e frequência TPF) dos dois grupos foram avaliadas. Os resultados dos desempenhos dos grupos nas diferentes tarefas foram comparados estatisticamente por meio do Mann-Whitney U test (P<0,05) e um teste de regressão logística foi aplicado visando-se observar quais fatores poderiam predizer o bilinguismo. Resultados: Observou-se melhor desempenho do GB em tarefas de CF (português/inglês) e MTF - repetição de nãopalavras (português/inglês). Observou-se, também melhor desempenho do GB em tarefas RAN (português) exceto para nomeação de cores, e melhor desempenho do GB em todas as tarefas RAN em inglês. Observou-se melhor desempenho do GB nos testes de avaliação das habilidades auditivas tanto em TPD quanto TPF. As variáveis com mais forte associação ao bilinguismo foram as tarefas de CF do inglês e tarefas de RAN em inglês. Conclusão: Indivíduos bilíngues apresentam melhores desempenhos em testes fonológicos e auditivos, já que essas habilidades favorecem a identificação e discriminação de variações na fonologia de ambos os idiomas influenciando seu desempenho / Introduction: Several studies have evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of bilingualism in a range of human skills. In order to understand a foreign language, it is necessary to develop specific skills that start from an information heard. Thus, the study of auditory and phonological abilities in bilinguals has aroused the interest of several researchers in recent years. Objective: To evaluate Central Auditory Processing (CAP) skills of discrimination and temporal ordering and Phonological Processing (PP) skills in bilinguals. Methodology: 100 undergraduate and graduate students were divided into two groups: Bilingual Group (BG n = 50) and Monolingual Group (MG n = 50), according to the classification of the \"Common European Framework of Reference For Languages\". Participants with a formal English course certificate or stay of two years in countries of this language were considered bilingual and were classified as: Independent or proficient (B1, B2, C1, C2). Participants inserted in levels A1 and A2 or who did not possess competences foreseen in these items were considered monolingual. The skills of PP (phonological awareness PA , phonological work memory PWM and fast access to the lexicon FAL) of both Portuguese and English language and CAP skills (discrimination and temporal ordering of duration TOD and frequency TOF) of the two groups were evaluated. The results of the groups\' performances in the different tasks were compared statistically using the Mann-Whitney U test (P <0.05) and a logistic regression test was applied aiming to observe which factors could predict bilingualism. Results: Better performance of BG was observed in PA tasks (Portuguese/English) and PWM repetition of non-words (Portuguese/English). We also observed better performance of BG in FAL tasks (Portuguese), except for color naming, and better BG performance in all FAL tasks in English. There was a better performance of BG in the auditory skills evaluation tests in both TOD and TOF. The variables with the strongest association with bilingualism were English PA tasks and English FAL tasks. Conclusion: Bilingual individuals present better performances in phonological and auditory tests, since these abilities favor the identification and discrimination of phonological variations in both languages, influencing their performance

Vários estudos têm apontado que falhas nas habilidades do processamento fonológico (consciência fonológica, memória fonológica e acesso ao léxico) estão relacionadas com distúrbios de leitura e escrita. Programas terapêuticos baseados na estimulação da consciência fonológica têm sido propostos, porém poucos se propõem a estimular as três habilidades do processamento fonológico. A efetividade dos programas terapêuticos é evidenciada por testes comportamentais e, na busca por biomarcadores da evolução terapêutica, o potencial evocado auditivo de longa latência (P300) tem sido estudado. O P300 é um potencial endógeno que avalia a resposta do sujeito a estímulos acústicos, envolvidos nas regiões cerebrais corticais e subcorticais relacionados com atenção, discriminação auditiva e memória. O presente estudo teve por objetivo investigar a eficácia de um programa de estimulação do processamento fonológico em escolares com Distúrbios de Leitura e Escrita por meio da análise dos testes comportamentais e P300 pré e pós-estimulação. Participaram deste estudo 10 escolares, que frequentavam regularmente o 4º, 5º, 6º ou 7º ano do Ensino Fundamental, com Distúrbio de Leitura e Escrita. Os escolares foram submetidos às avaliações de aritmética, consciência fonológica, memória fonológica, nomeação automática rápida, leitura e escrita, e submetidos ao exame P300, em seguida iniciaram uma intervenção baseada na estimulação das habilidades do processamento fonológico. A intervenção foi realizada em 20 sessões (semanais de 45 minutos). A proposta de intervenção foi baseada em exercícios de estimulação dos três componentes do processamento fonológico. Após a intervenção, foram novamente submetidos às mesmas avaliações comportamentais e avaliação do P300. Os resultados pré e pós-estimulação foram comparados por meio do Wilcoxon-test para amostras pareadas com o nível de significância de 0,05. Observou-se melhora no desempenho em todas as tarefas do Processamento Fonológico (p<0,05). A melhora também foi observada na leitura de palavras e pseudopalavras e compreensão de texto (p<0,05), além de diminuição de erros ortográficos no ditado e escrita espontânea (p<0,05). O P300 não apresentou diferença no período pós-estimulação, mostrando que o programa foi efetivo e que o P300 não foi um biomarcador eficiente de evolução terapêutica. / Several studies have pointed out that failures in phonological processing skills (phonological awareness, phonological memory and lexical retrieval) are related to reading and writing disorders. Therapeutic programs based on phonological awareness have been proposed, but few are meant to stimulate the three phonological processing skills. The effectiveness of therapeutic programs is evidenced by behavioral tests, however, in the search for biomarkers of therapeutic evolution, the long-latency auditory evoked potential (P300) has been studied. The P300 is an endogenous potential that evaluates the response of the subject to acoustic stimuli involved in cortical and subcortical brain regions related to attention, auditory discrimination and memory. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a stimulation program of phonological processing in children with reading and writing disorders by analyzing the behavioral tests and the P300 pre and post-stimulation. The participants of this study were 10 students who regularly attended the 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th year of elementary school and have reading and writing disorder. The students were submitted to arithmetic reviews, phonological awareness, phonological memory, rapid automatized naming, reading and writing, and submitted to the P300 examination, then began an intervention based on the stimulation of phonological processing skills. This intervention was performed in 20 sessions (45 minutes weekly). The proposed intervention was based on the stimulation exercises of the three components of phonological processing. After the intervention, they were again subjected to the same behavioral assessments and evaluation of P300. The pre and post-stimulation were compared using the Wilcoxon-test for paired samples with the 0.05 significance level. There was an improved performance in all tasks of Phonological Processing (p <0.05). The improvement was also observed in reading words and pseudo words and reading comprehension (p <0.05), and a reduction of spelling errors in dictation and spontaneous writing (p <0.05). The P300 showed no difference in post-stimulation period, showing that the program was effective and P300 cannot be considered a biomarker of therapeutic evolution.

Introdução: Diversos estudos têm avaliado as vantagens e desvantagens do bilinguismo em uma gama de habilidades humanas. Para se compreender uma língua estrangeira é necessário o desenvolvimento de habilidades específicas que se inicia a partir de uma informação ouvida. Dessa forma, o estudo das habilidades auditivas e fonológicas em bilíngues tem despertado o interesse de diversos pesquisadores nos últimos anos. Objetivo: avaliar habilidades do Processamento Auditivo Central (PAC) de discriminação e ordenação temporal e habilidades do Processamento Fonológico (PF) em bilíngues. Metodologia: 100 estudantes universitários de (graduação e pós-graduação) foram divididos em dois grupos: Grupo Bilíngue (GB n=50) e Grupo Monolíngue (GM n=50), de acordo com classificação do Quadro Europeu Comum de Referência para as Línguas. Foram considerados bilíngues os participantes classificados como: Independente ou proficiente (B1, B2, C1, C2) e que tivessem certificado em curso formal de língua inglesa ou permanência por dois anos em países deste idioma. Foram considerados monolíngues, participantes inseridos nos níveis A1 e A2 ou que não possuíssem competências previstas nestes itens. As habilidades do PF (consciência fonológica - CF, memória de trabalho fonológica - MTF e acesso rápido ao léxico - RAN) tanto do português quanto em idioma inglês e habilidades do PAC (discriminação e ordenação temporal de duração - TPD e frequência TPF) dos dois grupos foram avaliadas. Os resultados dos desempenhos dos grupos nas diferentes tarefas foram comparados estatisticamente por meio do Mann-Whitney U test (P<0,05) e um teste de regressão logística foi aplicado visando-se observar quais fatores poderiam predizer o bilinguismo. Resultados: Observou-se melhor desempenho do GB em tarefas de CF (português/inglês) e MTF - repetição de nãopalavras (português/inglês). Observou-se, também melhor desempenho do GB em tarefas RAN (português) exceto para nomeação de cores, e melhor desempenho do GB em todas as tarefas RAN em inglês. Observou-se melhor desempenho do GB nos testes de avaliação das habilidades auditivas tanto em TPD quanto TPF. As variáveis com mais forte associação ao bilinguismo foram as tarefas de CF do inglês e tarefas de RAN em inglês. Conclusão: Indivíduos bilíngues apresentam melhores desempenhos em testes fonológicos e auditivos, já que essas habilidades favorecem a identificação e discriminação de variações na fonologia de ambos os idiomas influenciando seu desempenho / Introduction: Several studies have evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of bilingualism in a range of human skills. In order to understand a foreign language, it is necessary to develop specific skills that start from an information heard. Thus, the study of auditory and phonological abilities in bilinguals has aroused the interest of several researchers in recent years. Objective: To evaluate Central Auditory Processing (CAP) skills of discrimination and temporal ordering and Phonological Processing (PP) skills in bilinguals. Methodology: 100 undergraduate and graduate students were divided into two groups: Bilingual Group (BG n = 50) and Monolingual Group (MG n = 50), according to the classification of the \"Common European Framework of Reference For Languages\". Participants with a formal English course certificate or stay of two years in countries of this language were considered bilingual and were classified as: Independent or proficient (B1, B2, C1, C2). Participants inserted in levels A1 and A2 or who did not possess competences foreseen in these items were considered monolingual. The skills of PP (phonological awareness PA , phonological work memory PWM and fast access to the lexicon FAL) of both Portuguese and English language and CAP skills (discrimination and temporal ordering of duration TOD and frequency TOF) of the two groups were evaluated. The results of the groups\' performances in the different tasks were compared statistically using the Mann-Whitney U test (P <0.05) and a logistic regression test was applied aiming to observe which factors could predict bilingualism. Results: Better performance of BG was observed in PA tasks (Portuguese/English) and PWM repetition of non-words (Portuguese/English). We also observed better performance of BG in FAL tasks (Portuguese), except for color naming, and better BG performance in all FAL tasks in English. There was a better performance of BG in the auditory skills evaluation tests in both TOD and TOF. The variables with the strongest association with bilingualism were English PA tasks and English FAL tasks. Conclusion: Bilingual individuals present better performances in phonological and auditory tests, since these abilities favor the identification and discrimination of phonological variations in both languages, influencing their performance

Os fatores genéticos e hereditários têm ganhado um foco especial como causa da dislexia, entretanto, há muito a ser estudado na busca de sua etiologia. Há vasta literatura associando o processamento fonológico ao aprendizado da leitura e escrita, porém pouco é investigado sobre a participação do processamento visual nas habilidades de leitura. Atualmente, a relação entre processamento fonológico e matemática tem sido apontada nas publicações científicas, sendo ainda pouco estudada, havendo necessidade de melhor compreensão entre a relação dessas habilidades, bem como as comorbidades entre dislexia e problemas na matemática. Este estudo teve como objetivo geral descrever o perfil endofenótipo dos sujeitos com dislexia referente à hereditariedade e influência do processamento fonológico e memória sequencial visual nas dificuldades da linguagem escrita e na matemática, no intuito de identificar semelhanças e diferenças no processamento da informação escrita entre indivíduos com dislexia e bons leitores. Participaram 35 indivíduos com o diagnóstico de dislexia e 46 bons leitores, de 8 a 13 anos e ambos os sexos. Nos dois grupos foram avaliadas as habilidades do processamento fonológico (consciência fonológica, acesso ao léxico e memória de trabalho fonológica), leitura de palavras, pseudopalavras, compreensão de texto, escrita e habilidades matemáticas. As habilidades do processamento fonológico e memória visual foram correlacionadas com a leitura, escrita e matemática nos dois grupos. Foi utilizado o Teste de Correlação de Pearson para correlacionar tais habilidades, e o Teste Qui-Quadrado e Teste U de Mann-Whitney para comparar o desempenho entre os grupos, adotando-se nível de significância de 5%. Encontrou-se que o histórico familial de problemas de aprendizagem esteve presente em mais da metade do grupo com dislexia, demonstrando que este é um importante fator de risco. Os indivíduos com dislexia apresentam pior desempenho no processamento fonológico, porém houve um pequeno número de disléxicos que não apresentou alterações na consciência fonológica e no acesso ao léxico. Em relação à memória de trabalho fonológica, os indivíduos com dislexia apresentaram pior desempenho, no entanto, quase metade dos bons leitores também apresentaram esta habilidade alterada. A maioria dos disléxicos apresentou o perfil de alteração nas três habilidades do processamento fonológico e um pequeno grupo apresentou a consciência fonológica e o acesso ao léxico preservado. Não houve diferenças significantes entre os grupos quanto à memória visual. Grande parte dos disléxicos apresentou dificuldades em habilidades matemáticas, o que foi encontrado em um pequeno grupo de bons leitores. Este estudo encontrou comorbidade entre dislexia e dificuldades matemáticas em 83% dos casos, sendo esta uma prevalência acima do que é descrito na literatura. As trocas ortográficas do tipo substituição de letras que representam fonemas surdos e sonoros e inversões parece ser um perfil da ortografia dos disléxicos. As habilidades de consciência fonológica, acesso ao léxico e memória de trabalho fonológica mostraram maior correlação na leitura e na escrita no grupo com dislexia, sugerindo que o processamento fonológico passa a ter menor participação na leitura e na escrita na medida em que os indivíduos se tornam leitores fluentes. A memória visual correlaciona-se com a matemática nos dois grupos. / Genetic and hereditarity factors have gained a special focus as the cause of dyslexia, however, there is much to be studied in the search for its etiology. There is extensive literature linking phonological processing to reading and writing learning, but the participation of visual processing in reading skills is little investigated. Currently, the relationship between phonological processing and mathematics has been identified in scientific publications, but still scarcely studied, there is need for better understanding the relationship between these skills as well as the comorbidities between dyslexia and problems in mathematics. This study aimed to describe the endophenotype profile of the subjects with dyslexia related to hereditarity and influence of phonological processing and visual sequential memory difficulties in written language and mathematics, in order to identify similarities and differences in written information processing between individuals with dyslexia and good readers. Participated in the study 35 diagnosed with dyslexia and 46 good readers, from 8 to 13 years old, both genders. Both groups were assessed the phonological processing skills (phonological awareness, lexical access and phonological working memory), words and pseudo words reading, reading comprehension, writing and math skills. The skills of phonological processing and visual memory were correlated with reading, writing and math in both groups. It was used the Pearson\'s Correlation Test to correlate these skills, and the Chi-square Test and Mann-Whitney Test to compare the performance between the groups, adopting a significance level of 5%. Family history of learning problems was present in more than half of the group with dyslexia, demonstrating that this is an important risk factor. Individuals with dyslexia performed worse in the phonological processing, but there was a small number of dyslexics that showed no alterations in phonological awareness and lexicon access. Regarding phonological working memory, individuals with dyslexia presented worse performance, however, nearly half of good readers also had this ability altered. Most dyslexics presented the profile of alterations in the three phonological processing skills and a small group presented phonological awareness and lexicon access preserved. There were no significant differences between groups as regards the visual memory. Much of dyslexics had difficulties in math skills, which were found in a small group of good readers. This study found comorbidity between dyslexia and mathematical difficulties in 83% of cases, which is a prevalence higher than what is described in the literature. Spelling exchanges like replacing letters that represent voiced and unvoiced phonemes and inversions appears to be a profile of the spelling of dyslexic. The phonological awareness skills, lexical access and phonological working memory showed higher correlation in reading and writing in the group with dyslexia, suggesting that phonological processing is replaced by lower participation in reading and writing insofar as individuals become fluent readers. The visual memory correlates with mathematics in both groups.

The primary goal of the current study was to investigate the impact of different first language backgrounds on early Chinese reading development by comparing a group of children who spoke a dialect at home and learned to speak and read Mandarin as a second language as soon as they attended Mandarin immersion programs with their Mandarin-speaking monolingual counterparts. The comparison involved five variables, two of which were measures of reading outcomes, word reading accuracy and vocabulary knowledge, and the other three were measures related to processing spoken languages, including rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness. The study was carried out in two phases. Participants in Phase One consisted of 30 dialect-dominant (DD) and 30 Mandarin-monolingual (MD) children from one kindergarten. Half of them were in their second year (K2), and the other half were in their third year of kindergarten (K3). Participants in Phase Two consisted of 218 dialect-dominant children from the third-year kindergarten to the third grade in one school. The assessments in Phase One were administered from March to April in 2011, and the assessments in Phase Two were administered from May to July in 2011. The current study added to extant literature by yielding several important findings with an under-represented population in Chinese reading research. First, the strong link between morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge, which has been documented in previous studies, is now extended to the group of DD children. Second, the current study revealed that in comparison to the MD group the DD group performed significantly poorer on Mandarin morphological construction in K2, indicating an impact of language proficiency in the development of morphological awareness. This impact appeared to affect the DD children's subsequent vocabulary development. Third, the current study showed grade variability in the rapid automatized naming (RAN)-Chinese reading relation and suggested that the component of language proficiency might affect children's rapid naming speed and moderate the relation of RAN to reading outcomes. Limitations of the current study and directions for future research are presented.

The structure of phonological processing for typically developing children has been debated over the past two decades. Recent research has indicated that phonological processing is best explained by a single underlying phonological ability (e.g., Anthony and Lonigan, 2004). The current study had two goals. The first goal was to determine the structure of phonological processing for school-age children with mild intellectual disabilities (MID). The second goal was to determine the relationship between the components of phonological processing and expressive and receptive language ability. The participants were 222 school-age children identified by their schools as having MID. Confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to determine the structure of phonological processing. The results indicated that a model with one phonological awareness factor and one naming speed factor explained the data better than competing models with a single latent factor or more than two latent factors. There was a negative significant relationship between phonological processing and naming speed. There were positive bivariate relationships between phonological processing and expressive and receptive language. There were negative bivariate relationships between naming speed and expressive and receptive language. These results are consistent with other research findings with typically developing children, indicating a similarity in the relationships between phonological process and language for children with MID. Theoretical and instructional implications are discussed.

Children at risk for reading problems also have difficulty perceiving critical differences in speech sounds (Breier et al., 2004; Edwards, Fox, & Rogers, 2003; de- Gelder & Vroomen, 1998). These children rely more heavily on context than the acoustic qualities of sound to facilitate word reading. Dialect use, such as African American English (AAE) may influence literacy development in similar ways. Dialect use has been shown to affect speech sound processing and can even result in spelling errors (Kohler, et al., in press). The purpose of this study is to determine if children who speak AAE process cues indicative of final consonant voicing differently than children who speak a more mainstream dialect of English. Twenty-six typically developing children in grades K-2 who spoke either AAE or a more mainstream American English dialect participated. The speech stimuli consisted of nonsense productions of vowel + plosive consonant. These stimuli were systematically altered by changing the vowel and stop-gap closure duration simultaneously, which resulted in the final consonant changing from a voiced consonant, like “ib”, to a voiceless consonant, like “ip”. Two tasks were developed: a continuum task where the child had to indicate when the stimuli changed in voicing and a same-different task which involved determining if two stimuli were identical in voicing or not. No significant differences between groups were found for dialect use or grade for the same/different task. In the continuum task, chi-square analyses revealed significant differences in response patterns attributable to dialect and grade. In addition, a significant consonant by speaker interaction was found for mean ratings. Correlations between mean continuum rating and phonological awareness composites were not significant. In conclusion, it was evident that children who speak AAE present with differences in their perception of final consonants in VC nonsense syllables. This finding suggests the dialect speakers may be using different cues to make judgments regarding the speech signal, or that the speakers of AAE have a less mature ability to extract fine phonetic detail due to the influence of their dialect (Baran & Seymour, 1979). More research is warranted to determine the exact role that dialect plays.