The role of speech processing in the phonological awareness of poor readers
Phonological awareness is a crucial component of reading development and a phonological deficit has been consistently found in poor readers. Studies of the auditory processing abilities of poor readers. however. have found conflicting evidence of deficits for perceiving either fast or slow rates of acoustic change, both of which may act as cues for speech perception. The aim of the present research was to investigate if a difference exists between poor readers' and normal readers' processing of the acoustic cues within speech in PA tasks and if this contributes to poor readers' phonological deficit. The studies presented in this thesis used various methods to modify the speech in phonological awareness tasks. These tasks were administered to groups of poor readers. chronologically age matched controls and reading age matched controls. Slow fluctuations in noise masking of speech in a PA task were found to impair PA performance more so than fast fluctuations in noise masking. although the latter may provide benefits for response speed. Typically developing children were found to be sensitive to the temporal degradation of speech in a PA task when the words were compressed to 50%, while the poor reading children
Stark, Patrick James Henry
The role of speech processing in the phonological awareness of poor readers. Phonological awareness is a crucial component of reading development and a phonological deficit has been consistently found in poor readers. Studies of the auditory processing abilities of poor readers. however. have found conflicting evidence of deficits for perceiving either fast or slow rates of acoustic change, both of which may act as cues for speech perception. The aim of the present research was to investigate if a difference exists between poor readers' and normal readers' processing of the acoustic cues within speech in PA tasks and if this contributes to poor readers' phonological deficit. The studies presented in this thesis used various methods to modify the speech in phonological awareness tasks. These tasks were administered to groups of poor readers. chronologically age matched controls and reading age matched controls. Slow fluctuations in noise masking of speech in a PA task were found to impair PA performance more so than fast fluctuations in noise masking. although the latter may provide benefits for response speed. Typically developing children were found to be sensitive to the temporal degradation of speech in a PA task when the words were compressed to 50%, while the poor reading children
role speech process phonological_awareness poor reader phonological_awareness crucial component reading development phonological deficit consistently find poor reader studies auditory process ability poor reader however find conflict evidence deficit perceive either fast slow rate acoustic change may act cue speech perception aim_present investigate_difference exist poor reader normal reader processing acoustic_cue within speech task contribute poor reader phonological deficit study present use various method modify speech phonological_awareness task task administer group poor reader chronologically age match control read age match control slow fluctuation noise mask speech task find impair performance fast fluctuation noise mask although latter may provide benefit response speed typically develop child find sensitive temporal degradation speech task word poor reading child