Abstract
This work tests the relationship between auditory and phonological skill in a non-selected cohort of 238 school students (age 11) with the specific hypothesis that sound-sequence analysis would be more relevant to phonological skill than the analysis of basic, single sounds. Auditory processing was assessed across the domains of pitch, time and timbre; a combination of six standard tests of literacy and language ability was used to assess phonological skill. A significant correlation between general auditory and phonological skill was demonstrated, plus a significant, specific correlation between measures of phonological skill and the auditory analysis of short sequences in pitch and time. The data support a limited but significant link between auditory and phonological ability with a specific role for sound-sequence analysis, and provide a possible new focus for auditory training strategies to aid language development in early adolescence.
Highlights
Speech has a complex acoustic structure based on spectro-temporal patterns at multiple time scales ranging from tens of milliseconds at the segmental level to the suprasegmental level of phrases and sentences spanning several seconds [1– 12]
We describe below the separate principal component analyses (PCAs) for the auditory and phonological data, the general correlation between the first auditory and phonological principal components (PCs) that explained most of the variance within either dataset and the task-specific correlations between single auditory measures of auditory sequence analysis and phonological skill
(a) Principal component analysis The auditory PCA was conducted across the three domains of pitch, time and timbre, including the data from all individuals that completed all 12 tasks (n 1⁄4 176)
Summary
Speech has a complex acoustic structure based on spectro-temporal patterns at multiple time scales ranging from tens of milliseconds at the segmental level to the suprasegmental level of phrases and sentences spanning several seconds [1– 12]. This work addresses the nature of the relationship between auditory processing and phonological skill with a systematic approach. Previous work on auditory ability and language skills and disorders mainly used basic stimuli comprising single sounds as opposed to sound sequences. Studies of typical language development for instance, have shown a correlation between pitch discrimination and reading ability at age 4–5 (n 1⁄4 18) [13], and between frequency-modulation (FM) detection at speech-related rates (2, 40 Hz) and nonword reading at age 10 (n 1⁄4 32) [14]. Studies of auditory processing in dyslexic compared with typically developing individuals have shown deficits in FM detection [15–17], frequency discrimination [18], amplitude rise-time discrimination [15] and discrimination of spectral changes [19,20]. Basic auditory processing deficits have been reported in specific language impairment (SLI): frequency discrimination [21] and backward masking [22]. There have been failures to replicate a consistent relationship between such deficits and impaired language development or dyslexia [10,23–25]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
