Purpose: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration indications for cochlear implantation in children is currently 9 months of age and older for children with bilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Studies have shown that earlier activation of a cochlear implant (CI) can lead to better spoken language outcomes. As auditory skills are a…

The infant brain may be predisposed to identify perceptually salient cues that are common to both signed and spoken languages. Recent theory based on spoken languages has advanced sonority as one of these potential language acquisition cues. Using a preferential looking paradigm with an infrared eye tracker, we explored visual attention of hearing…

Perception verbs and mental verbs have significant overlap in their syntax and semantics; both reference mental representations when taking embedded clauses, as in "I see that Maria was here" and "I think that Maria was here." Some have suggested that perception is more accessible for young children than mental states, raising…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to test whether a group of older postlingually deafened cochlear implant users (OCIs) use similar verbal memory strategies to those used by older normal-hearing adults (ONHs). Verbal memory functioning was assessed in the visual and auditory modalities separately, enabling us to eliminate possible modality-based…

Onomatopoeia are disproportionately high in number in infants' early words compared to adult language. Studies of infant language perception have proposed an iconic advantage for onomatopoeia, which may make them easier for infants to learn. This study analyses infants' early word production to show a phonological motivation for onomatopoeia in…

This study investigated the relationship between balanced multilingualism and working memory. Specifically, it reports on the relationship between balanced proficiency in speaking, reading and comprehension (across three languages), and verbal and visuospatial working memory in young South African adults. Information about participants' language…

Interest in students who exhibit characteristics with difficulties in learning can be traced as far back as 1800. In order to better understand the complexities and causes of learning disabilities, many researchers (Bannatyne, 1968, 1974; Rugal, 1974) have investigated ways to better identify learners who struggle with academics. A strong argument…

This paper addresses effects of age and sex on certain acoustic properties of speech, given conflicting findings on such effects reported in prior research. The speech of 27 younger adults (15 women, 12 men; mean age 25.5 years) and 59 older adults (32 women, 27 men; mean age 75.2 years) was evaluated for identification of differences for sex and…

Purpose: This study examined children's self-reported quality of life with a cochlear implant as related to children's actual perceptions of speech and the emotional information conveyed by sound. Effects of age at amplification with hearing aids and fitting of cochlear implants on perceived quality of life were also investigated. Method: A…

This study evaluated whether age effects on second language (L2) speech learning derive from changes in how the native language (L1) and L2 sound systems interact. According to the "interaction hypothesis" (IH), the older the L2 learner, the less likely the learner is able to establish new vowel categories needed for accurate L2 vowel production…

Although spoken language is communicated via a rapidly varying signal, human listeners recognize spoken words both quickly and accurately. Nonetheless, variability in speech does have implications for both the processes and representations involved in spoken language perception. Moreover, variability effects have been observed across the lifespan,…

In the present study, language development of Dutch children with a cochlear implant (CI) in a bilingual educational setting and Flemish children with a CI in a dominantly monolingual educational setting is compared. In addition, we compared the development of spoken language with the development of sign language in Dutch children. Eighteen…

This study examined the abilities of adult listeners to discriminate and identify temporal order of sounds presented in tonal sequence. Listeners had either normal hearing or mild to moderate sensorineural hearing losses. In general, older listeners performed more poorly than younger listeners on the discrimination and identification tasks. Order…

Investigation of the perception and production of English voiceless fricatives in normally developing monolingual 3- to 5-year-olds (N=12) partially supported the hypothesis that certain sound substitutions by older children are perceptually based substitutions, typified by poor discrimination, while others are phonetic substitutions--phonemic…

Behavioral studies have shown that while young infants can discriminate many different phonetic contrasts, a shift from a language-general to a language-specific pattern of discrimination is found during the second semester of life, beginning earlier for vowels than for consonants. This age-related decline in sensitivity to perceive non-native…