We provide an exhaustive review of studies in the relatively new domain of research on the influence of orthography on second language (L2) phonological acquisition. While language teachers have long recognized the importance of written input--in addition to spoken input--on learners' development, until this century there was very little…

Daniel Ling created the "Ling Sound Test" (auditory assessment tool) and it was first published in the book titled "Speech and the Hearing-Impaired Child: Theory and Practice" (Ling,1976). The philosophy behind Ling's sound test is to use a range of speech sounds that largely represents the speech spectrum from 250-8000 Hz…

This article offers information that will allow music educators to incorporate North Indian classical vocal music into a multicultural music education curriculum. Obstacles to teaching North Indian classical vocal music are acknowledged, including lack of familiarity with the cultural/structural elements and challenges in teaching ear training and…

In the process of language learning, individuals must acquire different types of linguistic knowledge, such as the sounds of the language (phonemes), how these may be combined to form words (phonotactics), and morphological rules. Early and late bilinguals tend to perform like natives on second language phonological tasks that involve pre-lexical…

We outline how research into predictors of literacy underpins the development of increasingly accurate and informative assessments. We report three studies that emphasize the crucial role of speech and auditory skills on literacy development throughout primary and secondary school. Our first study addresses the effects of early childhood middle…

Central Auditory Processing (CAP) difficulties have attained increasing recognition leading to escalating rates of referrals for evaluation. Recognition of the association between (Central) Auditory Processing Disorder ((C)APD) and language, learning, and literacy difficulties has resulted in increased referrals and detection in school-aged…

Level-invariant detection refers to findings that thresholds in tone-in-noise detection are unaffected by roving-level procedures that degrade energy cues. Such data are inconsistent with ideas that detection is based on the energy passed by an auditory filter. A hypothesis that detection is based on a level-invariant temporal cue is advanced.…

We propose an "Enhanced Perceptual Functioning" model encompassing the main differences between autistic and non-autistic social and non-social perceptual processing: locally oriented visual and auditory perception, enhanced low-level discrimination, use of a more posterior network in "complex" visual tasks, enhanced perception…

Musically tone-deaf individuals have psychophysical deficits in detecting pitch changes, yet their discrimination of intonation contours in speech appears to be normal. One hypothesis for this dissociation is that intonation contours use coarse pitch contrasts which exceed the pitch-change detection thresholds of tone-deaf individuals (Peretz &…

This monograph is a collection of papers describing a series of loosely related studies of visual attention, auditory stimulation, and language discrimination in young infants. Titles include: (1) Infant Attention and Discrimination: Methodological and Substantive Issues; (2) The Addition of Auditory Stimulation (Music) and an Interspersed…

This article traces the development of the concept of "audism" from its inception in the mid-1970s by exploring three distinct dimensions of oppression: individual, institutional, and metaphysical. Although the first two aspects of audism have been identified, there is a deeply rooted belief system regarding language and human identity that is yet…

Perceptual discrimination between speech sounds belonging to different phoneme categories is better than that between sounds falling within the same category. This property, known as ''categorical perception,'' is weaker in children affected by dyslexia. Categorical perception develops from the predispositions of newborns for discriminating all…

N. F. Viemeister and G. H. Wakefield's (1991) multiple looks hypothesis is a theoretical approach from the psychoacoustic literature that has promise for bridging the gap between results from speech perception research and results from psychoacoustic research. This hypothesis accounts for sensory detection data and predicts that if the "looks" at…

Discusses the psychophysics of sound localization and the spatial attributes of sound, attempting to explain some of the methods used to produce more realistic sound images. Topics include: direct and indirect sound; localization and sound images; precedence effect; and techniques for creating spaciousness and for sonic image enhancement. (JM)

Describes the development and evaluation of a computer-administered testing program for auditory discrimination in young children. (WB)