Syllable Discrimination Research Articles

Acoustic Exaggeration Enhances Speech Discrimination in Young Autistic Children.

Child-directed speech (CDS), which amplifies acoustic and social features of speech during interactions with young children, promotes typical phonetic and language development. In autism, both behavioral and brain data indicate reduced sensitivity to human speech, which predicts absent, decreased, or atypical benefits of exaggerated speech signals such as CDS. This study investigates the impact of exaggerated fundamental frequency (F0) and voice-onset time on the neural processing of speech sounds in 22 Chinese-speaking autistic children aged 2-7 years old with a history of speech delays, compared with 25 typically developing (TD) peers. Electroencephalography (EEG) data were collected during passive listening to exaggerated and non-exaggerated syllables. A time-resolved multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) was used to evaluate the potential effects of acoustic exaggeration on syllable discrimination in terms of neural decoding accuracy. For non-exaggerated syllables, neither the autism nor the TD group achieved above-chance decoding accuracy. In contrast, for exaggerated syllables, both groups achieved above-chance decoding, indicating significant syllable discrimination, with no difference in accuracy between the autism and TD groups. However, the temporal generalization patterns in the MVPA results revealed distinct neural mechanisms supporting syllable discrimination between the groups. Although the TD group demonstrated a left-hemisphere advantage for decoding and generalization, the autism group displayed similar decoding patterns between hemispheres. These findings highlight the potential of selective acoustic exaggeration to support speech learning in autistic children, underscoring the importance of tailored, sensory-based interventions.

Speech perception and language comprehension in primary progressive aphasia

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive loss of speech and language. Although speech perception and language comprehension deficits are observed in individuals with PPA, these deficits have been understudied relative to production deficits. Recent work has examined receptive language processing at sublexical, lexical, and semantic levels in PPA; however, systematic investigation of these levels of processing within a single PPA cohort is lacking. The current study sought to fill this gap. Individuals with logopenic, nonfluent, and semantic variants of PPA and healthy, age-matched controls completed minimal pairs syllable discrimination, auditory lexical decision, and picture-word verification tasks to assess sublexical, lexical, and semantic processing. Distinct profiles were observed across PPA variants. Individuals with logopenic variant PPA had impaired performance on auditory lexical decision and picture-word verification tasks, with a trend toward impaired performance on the syllable discrimination task. Individuals with nonfluent and semantic variant PPA had impaired performance only on auditory lexical decision and picture-word verification. Evaluation of the types of errors made on the picture-word verification task (phonological and semantic) provided further insight into levels of deficits across the variants. Overall, the results indicate deficits in receptive processing at the lexical-phonological, lexical-semantic, and semantic levels in logopenic variant PPA, with a trend toward impaired sublexical processing. Deficits were observed at the lexical-semantic and semantic levels in semantic variant PPA, and lexical-phonological deficits were observed in nonfluent PPA, likely reflecting changes both in lexical-phonological processing as well as changes in predictive coding during perception. This study provides a more precise characterization of the linguistic profile of each PPA subtype for speech perception and language comprehension. The constellation of deficits observed in each PPA subtype holds promise for differential diagnosis and for informing models of intervention.

Enhancing speech perception in noise through articulation.

Considerable debate exists about the interplay between auditory and motor speech systems. Some argue for common neural mechanisms, whereas others assert that there are few shared resources. In four experiments, we tested the hypothesis that priming the speech motor system by repeating syllable pairs aloud improves subsequent syllable discrimination in noise compared with a priming discrimination task involving same-different judgments via button presses. Our results consistently showed that participants who engaged in syllable repetition performed better in syllable discrimination in noise than those who engaged in the priming discrimination task. This gain in accuracy was observed for primed and new syllable pairs, highlighting increased sensitivity to phonological details. The benefits were comparable whether the priming tasks involved auditory or visual presentation. Inserting a 1-h delay between the priming tasks and the syllable-in-noise task, the benefits persisted but were confined to primed syllable pairs. Finally, we demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach in older adults. Our findings substantiate the existence of a speech production-perception relationship. They also have clinical relevance as they raise the possibility of production-based interventions to improve speech perception ability. This would be particularly relevant for older adults who often encounter difficulties in perceiving speech in noise.

Sub-visemic discrimination and the effect of visual resemblance on silent lip-reading

ABSTRACT Relevant visual information is available in speakers’ faces during face-to-face interactions that improve speech perception. There is an ongoing debate, however, about how phonemes and their visual counterparts, visemes are mapped. An influential hypothesis claims that several phonemes can be mapped into a single visemic category (many-to-one phoneme-viseme mapping). In contrast, recent findings have challenged this view, reporting evidence for sub-visemic syllable discrimination. We aim to investigate whether Spanish words from the same visemic category can be identified or not. We designed a lip-reading task in which participants had to identify target words presented in silent video clips among 3 distractors differing in their visual resemblance from the target. Target words were identified above chance and significantly more than distractors from the same visemic category. Moreover, the error rate for distractors significantly decreased with decreasing visemic resemblance to the target. These results challenge the many-to-one phoneme-viseme mapping hypothesis.

Neural Adaptation at Stimulus Onset and Speed of Neural Processing as Critical Contributors to Speech Comprehension Independent of Hearing Threshold or Age.

Background: It is assumed that speech comprehension deficits in background noise are caused by age-related or acquired hearing loss. Methods: We examined young, middle-aged, and older individuals with and without hearing threshold loss using pure-tone (PT) audiometry, short-pulsed distortion-product otoacoustic emissions (pDPOAEs), auditory brainstem responses (ABRs), auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs), speech comprehension (OLSA), and syllable discrimination in quiet and noise. Results: A noticeable decline of hearing sensitivity in extended high-frequency regions and its influence on low-frequency-induced ABRs was striking. When testing for differences in OLSA thresholds normalized for PT thresholds (PTTs), marked differences in speech comprehension ability exist not only in noise, but also in quiet, and they exist throughout the whole age range investigated. Listeners with poor speech comprehension in quiet exhibited a relatively lower pDPOAE and, thus, cochlear amplifier performance independent of PTT, smaller and delayed ABRs, and lower performance in vowel-phoneme discrimination below phase-locking limits (/o/-/u/). When OLSA was tested in noise, listeners with poor speech comprehension independent of PTT had larger pDPOAEs and, thus, cochlear amplifier performance, larger ASSR amplitudes, and higher uncomfortable loudness levels, all linked with lower performance of vowel-phoneme discrimination above the phase-locking limit (/i/-/y/). Conslusions: This study indicates that listening in noise in humans has a sizable disadvantage in envelope coding when basilar-membrane compression is compromised. Clearly, and in contrast to previous assumptions, both good and poor speech comprehension can exist independently of differences in PTTs and age, a phenomenon that urgently requires improved techniques to diagnose sound processing at stimulus onset in the clinical routine.

Audiotactile Stimulation Can Improve Syllable Discrimination through Multisensory Integration in the Theta Frequency Band.

Syllables are an essential building block of speech. We recently showed that tactile stimuli linked to the perceptual centers of syllables in continuous speech can improve speech comprehension. The rate of syllables lies in the theta frequency range, between 4 and 8 Hz, and the behavioral effect appears linked to multisensory integration in this frequency band. Because this neural activity may be oscillatory, we hypothesized that a behavioral effect may also occur not only while but also after this activity has been evoked or entrained through vibrotactile pulses. Here, we show that audiotactile integration regarding the perception of single syllables, both on the neural and on the behavioral level, is consistent with this hypothesis. We first stimulated participants with a series of vibrotactile pulses and then presented them with a syllable in background noise. We show that, at a delay of 200 msec after the last vibrotactile pulse, audiotactile integration still occurred in the theta band and syllable discrimination was enhanced. Moreover, the dependence of both the neural multisensory integration as well as of the behavioral discrimination on the delay of the audio signal with respect to the last tactile pulse was consistent with a damped oscillation. In addition, the multisensory gain is correlated with the syllable discrimination score. Our results therefore evidence the role of the theta band in audiotactile integration and provide evidence that these effects may involve oscillatory activity that still persists after the tactile stimulation.

The Neuroanatomy of Speech Processing: A Large-scale Lesion Study.

The neural basis of language has been studied for centuries, yet the networks critically involved in simply identifying or understanding a spoken word remain elusive. Several functional-anatomical models of critical neural substrates of receptive speech have been proposed, including (1) auditory-related regions in the left mid-posterior superior temporal lobe, (2) motor-related regions in the left frontal lobe (in normal and/or noisy conditions), (3) the left anterior superior temporal lobe, or (4) bilateral mid-posterior superior temporal areas. One difficulty in comparing these models is that they often focus on different aspects of the sound-to-meaning pathway and are supported by different types of stimuli and tasks. Two auditory tasks that are typically used in separate studies-syllable discrimination and word comprehension-often yield different conclusions. We assessed syllable discrimination (words and nonwords) and word comprehension (clear speech and with a noise masker) in 158 individuals with focal brain damage: left (n = 113) or right (n = 19) hemisphere stroke, left (n = 18) or right (n = 8) anterior temporal lobectomy, and 26 neurologically intact controls. Discrimination and comprehension tasks are doubly dissociable both behaviorally and neurologically. In support of a bilateral model, clear speech comprehension was near ceiling in 95% of left stroke cases and right temporal damage impaired syllable discrimination. Lesion-symptom mapping analyses for the syllable discrimination and noisy word comprehension tasks each implicated most of the left superior temporal gyrus. Comprehension but not discrimination tasks also implicated the left posterior middle temporal gyrus, whereas discrimination but not comprehension tasks also implicated more dorsal sensorimotor regions in posterior perisylvian cortex.

Cortical encoding and cognition in reverberant speech perception in older adults

Older listeners are more susceptible than younger listeners to noise and reverberation when communicating in everyday environments. This study investigated the effects of hearing loss and cognitive processing ability on older individuals’ ability to perceive reverberant speech. The effects of reverberation were examined using three types of measures (1) electrophysiology: cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs), (2) cognition: working memory and inhibitory control aspect of executive function, and (3) speech perception: syllable discrimination and sentence intelligibility. These assessments were carried out in two age- and sex-matched groups of ten olderadults (>50 years) with either normal hearing (thresholds ≤ 25 dB HL ≤ 4 kHz) or with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. First, the effect of reverberation on the cortical encoding in each group was determined; then, the effects of hearing loss and cognitive function on syllable and sentence perception were examined. Preliminary analyses showed that increasing reverberation negatively impacts speech perception and alters the amplitude and timing of peaks in evoked responses. Differential effects of reverberation across group will also be discussed. The outcomes of this study will help design clinically applicable models to assess individual susceptibility to environmental interference. [Work supported by an Early Clinical Investigator Grant from Medical Research Foundation of Oregon to R.K.M.]

The frontotemporal organization of the arcuate fasciculus and its relationship with speech perception in young and older amateur singers and non-singers.

The ability to perceive speech in noise (SPiN) declines with age. Although the etiology of SPiN decline is not well understood, accumulating evidence suggests a role for the dorsal speech stream. While age‐related decline within the dorsal speech stream would negatively affect SPiN performance, experience‐induced neuroplastic changes within the dorsal speech stream could positively affect SPiN performance. Here, we investigated the relationship between SPiN performance and the structure of the arcuate fasciculus (AF), which forms the white matter scaffolding of the dorsal speech stream, in aging singers and non‐singers. Forty‐three non‐singers and 41 singers aged 20 to 87 years old completed a hearing evaluation and a magnetic resonance imaging session that included High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging. The groups were matched for sex, age, education, handedness, cognitive level, and musical instrument experience. A subgroup of participants completed syllable discrimination in the noise task. The AF was divided into 10 segments to explore potential local specializations for SPiN. The results show that, in carefully matched groups of singers and non‐singers (a) myelin and/or axonal membrane deterioration within the bilateral frontotemporal AF segments are associated with SPiN difficulties in aging singers and non‐singers; (b) the structure of the AF is different in singers and non‐singers; (c) these differences are not associated with a benefit on SPiN performance for singers. This study clarifies the etiology of SPiN difficulties by supporting the hypothesis for the role of aging of the dorsal speech stream.

Attentional engagement during syllable discrimination: The role of salient prosodic cues in 6- to 8-month-old infants

Prosodic cues drive speech segmentation and guide syllable discrimination. However, less is known about the attentional mechanisms underlying an infant's ability to benefit from prosodic cues. This study investigated how 6- to 8-month-old Italian infants allocate their attention to strong vs. weak syllables after familiarization with four repeats of a single CV sequence with alternating strong and weak syllables (different syllables on each trial). In the discrimination test-phase, either the strong or the weak syllable was replaced by a pure tone matching the suprasegmental characteristics of the segmental syllable, i.e., duration, loudness and pitch, whereas the familiarized stimulus was presented as a control. By using an eye-tracker, attention deployment (fixation times) and cognitive resource allocation (pupil dilation) were measured under conditions of high and low saliency that corresponded to the strong and weak syllabic changes, respectively. Italian learning infants were found to look longer and also to show, through pupil dilation, more attention to changes in strong syllable replacement rather than weak syllable replacement, compared to the control condition. These data offer insights into the strategies used by infants to deploy their attention towards segmental units guided by salient prosodic cues, like the stress pattern of syllables, during speech segmentation.

Speaking rhythmically can shape hearing.

Evidence suggests that temporal predictions arising from the motor system can enhance auditory perception. However, in speech perception, we lack evidence of perception being modulated by production. Here we show a behavioural protocol that captures the existence of such auditory-motor interactions. Participants performed a syllable discrimination task immediately after producing periodic syllable sequences. Two speech rates were explored: a 'natural' (individually preferred) and a fixed 'non-natural' (2 Hz) rate. Using a decoding approach, we show that perceptual performance is modulated by the stimulus phase determined by a participant's own motor rhythm. Remarkably, for 'natural' and 'non-natural' rates, this finding is restricted to a subgroup of the population with quantifiable auditory-motor coupling. The observed pattern is compatible with a neural model assuming a bidirectional interaction of auditory and speech motor cortices. Crucially, the model matches the experimental results only if it incorporates individual differences in the strength of the auditory-motor connection.

Differential activation of the visual word form area during auditory phoneme perception in youth with dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is a learning disorder characterized by difficulties reading words accurately and/or fluently. Several behavioral studies have suggested the presence of anomalies at an early stage of phoneme processing, when the complex spectrotemporal patterns in the speech signal are analyzed and assigned to phonemic categories. In this study, fMRI was used to compare brain responses associated with categorical discrimination of speech syllables (P) and acoustically matched nonphonemic stimuli (N) in children and adolescents with dyslexia and in typically developing (TD) controls, aged 8–17 years. The TD group showed significantly greater activation during the P condition relative to N in an area of the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex that corresponds well with the region referred to as the “visual word form area” (VWFA). Regression analyses using reading performance as a continuous variable across the full group of participants yielded similar results. Overall, the findings are consistent with those of previous neuroimaging studies using print stimuli in individuals with dyslexia that found reduced activation in left occipitotemporal regions; however, the current study shows that these activation differences seen during reading are apparent during auditory phoneme discrimination in youth with dyslexia, suggesting that the primary deficit in at least a subset of children may lie early in the speech processing stream and that categorical perception may be an important target of early intervention in children at risk for dyslexia.

Discrimination and identification of lexical tones and consonants in Mandarin-speaking children using cochlear implants.

Mandarin-speaking adults using cochlear implants (CI) experience more difficulties in perceiving lexical tones than consonants. This problem may result from the fact that CIs provide relatively sufficient temporal envelope information for consonant perception in quiet environments, but do not convey the fine spectro-temporal information considered to be necessary for accurate pitch perception. Another possibility is that Mandarin speakers with post-lingual hearing loss have developed language-specific use of these acoustic cues, impeding lexical tone processing under CI conditions. To investigate this latter hypothesis, syllable discrimination and word identification abilities for Mandarin consonants (place and manner) and lexical-tone contrasts (tones 1 vs 3 and 1 vs 2) were measured in 15 Mandarin-speaking children using CIs and age-matched children with normal hearing (NH). In the discrimination task, only children using CIs exhibited significantly lower scores for consonant place contrasts compared to other contrasts, including lexical tones. In the word identification task, children using CIs showed lower performance for all contrasts compared to children with NH, but they both showed specific difficulties with tone 1 vs 2 contrasts. This study suggests that Mandarin-speaking children using CIs are able to discriminate and identify lexical tones and, perhaps more surprisingly, have more difficulties when discriminating consonants.

Effect of acoustic features on discrimination ability in individuals with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder: an electrophysiological and behavioral study.

The present study aimed to investigate the discrimination ability for acoustic cues in individuals with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD) using both behavioral and neural measures and to compare the result with normal hearing individuals. Four naturally produced syllables /ba/, /da/, /ma/ and /pa/ were used to study discrimination skills. They were combined in pairs such that the two syllables differ in acoustic features, that is place (/ba/-/da/), manner (/ba/-/ma/) and voicing (/ba/-/pa/) cues. Thirty individuals with ANSD and 30 individuals with normal hearing sensitivity were the participants. Syllable discrimination skill was assessed using behavioral (reaction time, sensitivity and D-prime) and neural (P300) measures. There was prolongation in latency and reduction in amplitude of P300 in individuals with ANSD compared to individuals with normal hearing sensitivity. Individuals with ANSD showed better discrimination skill for stimulus pairs differing in the manner followed by place and the least perceived was voicing information. Discrimination ability of individuals with ANSD is found to be affected as evident on behavioral and neural measures. The discrimination ability varies with acoustic features of speech.

Development and evaluation of a computer-based auditory training program for rehabilitation of children with decoding deficit

Background and Aim: Decoding deficit is the most common central auditory processing disorder (CAPD). Given the benefits of computer-based auditory training programs for treatment of central disorders and the lack of such programs in Persian language, this study aimed to develop a computer-based auditory training program for decoding skill. We also evaluated this program in 8 to12 year old children with CAPD.Methods: The first stage of research was to develop a computer-based auditory training program. This program consists of three levels of phonological discrimination, syllable discrimination, and word discrimination. The second stage was to determine the content and face validity of the program. The third stage was to assess the program effect on five children with decoding deficit. The research method was interventional and had a pretest and post-test design with another five children as control group. The staggered spondaic word, phonemic synthesis (PS) and speech in noise tests was used to assess the children performance before and after training.Results: Mean scores of staggered spondaic word (SSW) and PS tests of the experimental group were significantly difference before and after the auditory training (p<0.05) as compared to control group. However, there was no significant difference with regard to the speech-in-noise test results (p>0.05).Conclusion: This computer-based auditory training program can be considered as a preliminary tool for the rehabilitation and treatment of decoding deficits in children with CAPD.

The role of the arcuate and middle longitudinal fasciculi in speech perception in noise in adulthood.

In this article, we used High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging (HARDI) with advanced anatomically constrained particle filtering tractography to investigate the role of the arcuate fasciculus (AF) and the middle longitudinal fasciculus (MdLF) in speech perception in noise in younger and older adults. Fourteen young and 15 elderly adults completed a syllable discrimination task in the presence of broadband masking noise. Mediation analyses revealed few effects of age on white matter (WM) in these fascicles but broad effects of WM on speech perception, independently of age, especially in terms of sensitivity and criterion (response bias), after controlling for individual differences in hearing sensitivity and head size. Indirect (mediated) effects of age on speech perception through WM microstructure were also found, after controlling for individual differences in hearing sensitivity and head size, with AF microstructure related to sensitivity, response bias and phonological priming, and MdLF microstructure more strongly related to response bias. These findings suggest that pathways of the perisylvian region contribute to speech processing abilities, with relatively distinct contributions for the AF (sensitivity) and MdLF (response bias), indicative of a complex contribution of both phonological and cognitive processes to age-related speech perception decline. These results provide new and important insights into the roles of these pathways as well as the factors that may contribute to elderly speech perception deficits. They also highlight the need for a greater focus to be placed on studying the role of WM microstructure to understand cognitive aging.

Poor Speech Perception Is Not a Core Deficit of Childhood Apraxia of Speech: Preliminary Findings.

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is hypothesized to arise from deficits in speech motor planning and programming, but the influence of abnormal speech perception in CAS on these processes is debated. This study examined speech perception abilities among children with CAS with and without language impairment compared to those with language impairment, speech delay, and typically developing peers. Speech perception was measured by discrimination of synthesized speech syllable continua that varied in frequency (/dɑ/-/ɡɑ/). Groups were classified by performance on speech and language assessments and compared on syllable discrimination thresholds. Within-group variability was also evaluated. Children with CAS without language impairment did not significantly differ in syllable discrimination compared to typically developing peers. In contrast, those with CAS and language impairment showed significantly poorer syllable discrimination abilities compared to children with CAS only and typically developing peers. Children with speech delay and language impairment also showed significantly poorer discrimination abilities, with appreciable within-group variability. These findings suggest that speech perception deficits are not a core feature of CAS but rather occur with co-occurring language impairment in a subset of children with CAS. This study establishes the significance of accounting for language ability in children with CAS. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5848056.

Speech Perception in Quiet and in Noise Condition in Individuals with Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder.

The study investigated the effect of noise on syllable perception in individuals with Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder (ANSD) and compared that with the normal hearing individuals. A total of 54 participants were considered, out of which 26 individuals were diagnosed with ANSD and 28 with normal hearing sensitivity. Syllable identification and discrimination were assessed in both the groups in quiet as well as +10 dB SNR. All the individuals with ANSD performed poorer on syllable identification and syllable discrimination tasks compared to individuals with normal hearing. Information transfer and d-prime analyses revealed that noise affects the perception of voicing information in individuals with ANSD compared to place and manner information. Among the consonants tested, /pa/ was more resistant to noise. Noise had deleterious effects on speech perception in individuals with ANSD. Low-frequency information appears to be more susceptible to the effects of noise in individuals with ANSD.

EEG Mu (µ) rhythm spectra and oscillatory activity differentiate stuttering from non-stuttering adults

Stuttering is linked to sensorimotor deficits related to internal modeling mechanisms. This study compared spectral power and oscillatory activity of EEG mu (μ) rhythms between persons who stutter (PWS) and controls in listening and auditory discrimination tasks. EEG data were analyzed from passive listening in noise and accurate (same/different) discrimination of tones or syllables in quiet and noisy backgrounds. Independent component analysis identified left and/or right μ rhythms with characteristic alpha (α) and beta (β) peaks localized to premotor/motor regions in 23 of 27 people who stutter (PWS) and 24 of 27 controls. PWS produced μ spectra with reduced β amplitudes across conditions, suggesting reduced forward modeling capacity. Group time-frequency differences were associated with noisy conditions only. PWS showed increased μ-β desynchronization when listening to noise and early in discrimination events, suggesting evidence of heightened motor activity that might be related to forward modeling deficits. PWS also showed reduced μ-α synchronization in discrimination conditions, indicating reduced sensory gating. Together these findings indicate spectral and oscillatory analyses of μ rhythms are sensitive to stuttering. More specifically, they can reveal stuttering-related sensorimotor processing differences in listening and auditory discrimination that also may be influenced by basal ganglia deficits.

Revisiting the "enigma" of musicians with dyslexia: Auditory sequencing and speech abilities.

Previous research has suggested a link between musical training and auditory processing skills. Musicians have shown enhanced perception of auditory features critical to both music and speech, suggesting that this link extends beyond basic auditory processing. It remains unclear to what extent musicians who also have dyslexia show these specialized abilities, considering often-observed persistent deficits that coincide with reading impairments. The present study evaluated auditory sequencing and speech discrimination in 52 adults comprised of musicians with dyslexia, nonmusicians with dyslexia, and typical musicians. An auditory sequencing task measuring perceptual acuity for tone sequences of increasing length was administered. Furthermore, subjects were asked to discriminate synthesized syllable continua varying in acoustic components of speech necessary for intraphonemic discrimination, which included spectral (formant frequency) and temporal (voice onset time [VOT] and amplitude envelope) features. Results indicate that musicians with dyslexia did not significantly differ from typical musicians and performed better than nonmusicians with dyslexia for auditory sequencing as well as discrimination of spectral and VOT cues within syllable continua. However, typical musicians demonstrated superior performance relative to both groups with dyslexia for discrimination of syllables varying in amplitude information. These findings suggest a distinct profile of speech processing abilities in musicians with dyslexia, with specific weaknesses in discerning amplitude cues within speech. Because these difficulties seem to remain persistent in adults with dyslexia despite musical training, this study only partly supports the potential for musical training to enhance the auditory processing skills known to be crucial for literacy in individuals with dyslexia. (PsycINFO Database Record