Foundations of early literacy among Arabic-speaking pre-school children

The present study aimed to shed light on (i) the most accessible phonological unit and (ii) the nature of letter knowledge among native Arabic-speaking preschool children living in Israel. One hundred and sixty-seven children were assessed on phonological awareness with initial and final isolation tasks as well as knowledge of the standard names and sounds of Arabic letters. Children’s responses in these tasks were categorized in accordance with the phonological unit that the child supplied. Regarding phonological unit accessibility, the novel finding of this study was the prevalence of a tri-phonemic /ʔεC/ unit that begins with the prefix /ʔε-/ and ends with the target (consonantal) phoneme which we have termed the “demi-phoneme” (e.g., /ʔεs/ for the consonant /s/). Awareness of the consonant–vowel unit was the next most prevalent unit followed lastly by the “smallest unit” – the phoneme. It appears that the demi-phoneme functions as a psycholinguistic aid to facilitate phoneme perception and pronunciation (as proposed by the 8th-century scholar – Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi) and both phoneme and demi-phoneme responses are underpinned by the same knowledge. With regard to letter knowledge, the standard name for Arabic letters was the preferred response and letter sounds were retrieved as a demi-phoneme unit.

The Electrophysiological Correlates of Phoneme Perception in Primary Progressive Aphasia: A Preliminary Case Series

Aims: This study aimed to investigate phoneme perception in patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) by using the event-related potential (ERP) technique. These ERP components might contribute to the diagnostic process of PPA and its clinical variants (NFV: nonfluent variant, SV: semantic variant, LV: logopenic variant) and reveal insights about phoneme perception processes in these patients.Method: Phoneme discrimination and categorization processes were investigated by the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P300 in eight persons with early- and late-stage PPA (3 NFV, 2 LV, 2 SV, and 1 PPA-NOS; not otherwise specified) and 30 age-matched healthy adults. The mean amplitude, the onset latency, and the topographic distribution of both components in each patient were compared to the results of the control group.Results: The MMN was absent or the onset latency of the MMN was delayed in the patients with the NFV, LV, and PPA-NOS in comparison to the control group. In contrast, no differences in mean amplitudes and onset latencies of the MMN were found between the patients with the SV and the control group. Concerning the P300, variable results were found in the patients with the NFV, SV, and PPA-NOS, but the P300 of both patients with the LV was delayed and prolonged with increased mean amplitude in comparison to the control group.Conclusion: In this preliminary study, phoneme discrimination deficits were found in the patients with the NFV and LV, and variable deficits in phoneme categorization processes were found in all patients with PPA. In clinical practice, the MMN might be valuable to differentiate the SV from the NFV and the LV and the P300 to differentiate the LV from the NFV and the SV. Further research in larger and independent patient groups is required to investigate the applicability of these components in the diagnostic process and to determine the nature of these speech perception deficits in the clinical variants of PPA.

Development of Phoneme Perception Test for School-Aged Children

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to develop lists of phoneme perception tests for school-aged children.Methods: The 127 initial and 94 final consonant test items were modified by the difficulty level (reduced the number for the multiple-choice and controlled familiarity of target words and foil words). The validity of the results for normal hearing children was evaluated. Through discussions by experts in various fields, the target word list was revised. Words with a low percentage (<90%) of correct answers, vowel-consonant in an initial consonant test item, and consonant-vowel (CV) in final consonant item were eliminated and produced the last revised consonant perception test item for school-aged children.Results: The consonant test item consisted of three multiple-choice words type of consonant-vowel-consonant or CV. The 50 initial and 25 final consonant perception test items included the high degree of familiarity, corresponding frequency of phonemes for daily life speech sounds of children.Conclusion: To analyze the phoneme perception ability of school-age children by listening and to evaluate phoneme errors in children with congenital high frequency hearing loss, the results of this study are useful.

Categorical Perception of VOT in Multilingual Children in Singapore – A preregistered investigation of the CROWN Game

Phoneme perception is critically involved in alphabetic reading, however current findings may not hold for bilinguals. In the CROWN Game, children hear tokens of familiar words across a voice-onset time continuum (-60ms to 90ms). We measured individual VOT threshold and the slope of the transition between categories in 138 English/Chinese speaking bilinguals in Singapore kindergartens. The task showed a wide spread of scores and good split-half reliability. In a preregistered analysis, we examined whether bilingual balance or order of acquisition influenced categorical perception of English phonemes /b/ and /p/. GLMMs revealed categorical perception was independent from language exposure. This suggests the CROWN Game is valid for use with bilingual children, including as a possible screening tool for future reading difficulties.

The influence of orthography in second language phonological acquisition

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 systematic research investigating the relationship between orthography and L2 phonological acquisition. Here, we review studies of the influence of written input on L2 phonological awareness, phoneme perception, the acquisition of phonological processes and syllable structure, and the pronunciation and recognition of words. We elaborate the variables that appear to moderate written input effects: (1) whether or not a novel phonological contrast is systematically represented by the L2 writing system (systematicity); (2) whether some or all of the L2 graphemes are familiar to learners from the L1 (familiarity); (3) for familiar graphemes, whether the native language (L1) and the L2 employ the same grapheme-phoneme correspondences (congruence); and (4) the ability of learners to perceive an auditory contrast that is systematically represented in writing (perceptibility). We conclude by calling for future research on the pedagogical implications of this body of work, which has thus far received very little attention by researchers.