Using auditory ensembles of sound that differed in frequency, intensity, and duration, it was found that fifth graders more easily learn stimuli that are unlike speech than those which closely approximate speech. (MH)

This study was undertaken to determine whether context independence (the degree to which the phonetic categorization of a given stimulus is independent of the context in which it occurs) and phonetic mediation (the degree to which discrimination appears to be based on category labels) are independent aspects of categorical perception. (Author/LC)

A 40-item speech/sound discrimination test was administered to 158 children (6 to 9 years old) to assess the effects of socioeconomic level and administrative mode, oral or tape, on auditory discrimination ability. Results indicated a model of administration effect, age effect, and an interaction between age and socioeconomic level. (Author)

Relationships among tone height, melodic contour, tone chroma, and recognition of recently learned melodies were investigated. Results replicated previous studies using familiar folk songs, providing evidence that melodic contour, tone chroma, and tone height contribute to recognition of both highly familiar and recently learned melodies.…

Research demonstrated successful discrimination in twenty 6-week-old infants when cardiac rate responses were employed in a no-delay rather than in the conventional discrete trials paradigm. (Author/SB)

Investigated potential influences of general processing capacity and sustained selective attention on the temporal processing of a group of children with specific language impairment and a group of age-matched controls. Results suggest that the SLI children did not evidence a basic temporal processing deficit. (Author/VWL)

Infants were trained to respond to vowel alterations. A total of 80 percent of the 2-, 3-, and 6-month-old infants in the sample did not respond when there was a change of pitch or speaker but no vowel change. The study established the feasibility of the observer-based psychoacoustic procedure. (BC)

Uses a nonsimultaneous pulsation threshold technique to examine the development of frequency resolutions in infants of three to six months. (PCB)

Ten children (ages 12-16) with specific language impairments (SLI) and controls matched for chronological or language age were tested with measures of complex sound localization involving the precedence effect phenomenon. SLI children exhibited tracking skills similar to language-age matched controls, indicating impairment in their ability to use…

Past studies have found equivocal support for the ability of young infants to discriminate infant-directed (ID) speech information in the presence of auditory-only versus auditory + visual displays (faces + voices). Generally, younger infants appear to have more difficulty discriminating a change in the vocal properties of ID speech when they are…

In the wake of "No Child Left Behind Act" (U.S. Department of Education, 2006), educational reforms focused on providing students with effective systematic instruction in reading skills have become a nationwide concern. Report findings from the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000),…

This study used the event-related brain potential mismatch negativity (MMN) to investigate preconscious discrimination of harmonically rich tones (differing in duration) and consonant-vowel syllables (differing in the initial consonant) in aphasia. Eighteen Norwegian aphasic patients, examined on average 3 months after brain injury, were compared…

Purpose: To construct a table for upper and lower limits of the 95% critical range for changes in word recognition scores obtained with monosyllabic word lists (of lengths 10, 25, 50, and 100 words) using newly available methods. Although such a table has been available for nearly 30 years (A. R. Thornton & M. J. M. Raffin, 1978), the earlier…