Changing relations between phonological processing abilities and word-level reading as children develop from beginning to skilled readers: A 5-year longitudinal study.

Relations between phonological processing abilities and word-level reading skills were examined in a longitudinal correlational study of 216 children. Phonological processing abilities, word-level reading skills, and vocabulary were assessed annually from kindergarten through 4th grade, as the children developed from beginning to skilled readers. Individual differences in phonological awareness were related to subsequent individual differences in word-level reading for every time period examined. Individual differences in serial naming and vocabulary were related to subsequent individual differences in word-level reading initially, but these relations faded with development. Individual differences in letter-name knowledge were related to subsequent individual differences in phonological awareness and serial naming, but there were no relations between individual differences in word level reading and any subsequent phonological processing ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Specific contributions of phonological abilities to early reading acquisition: Results from a Dutch latent variable longitudinal study.

Contributions of phonological abilities to early reading acquisition were examined in a longitudinal study of 166 Dutch children from kindergarten through 2nd grade. Various phonological abilities, nonverbal intelligence, vocabulary, and letter knowledge were assessed in kindergarten and Grade 1. Reading and arithmetic were examined in 1st and 2nd grades. The importance of individual differences in phonological ability for subsequent reading acquisition changed over time. At first, the effects of phonological abilities increased, but after Grade 1, these effects disappeared. Phonological awareness and rapid naming had independent and specific influences on reading achievement. Verbal working memory was associated with both reading and arithmetic acquisition. The results tend to support an interactive view of the relation between development of phonological abilities and learning to read. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological memory and vocabulary development during the early school years: A longitudinal study.

The nature of the developmental association between phonological memory and vocabulary knowledge was explored in a longitudinal study. At each of 4 waves (at ages 4, 5, 6, and 8 yrs), measures of vocabulary, phonological memory, nonverbal intelligence, and reading were taken from 80 children. Comparisons of cross-lagged partial correlations revealed a significant shift in the causal underpinnings of the relationship between phonological memory and vocabulary development before and after 5 yrs of age. Between 4 and 5 yrs, phonological memory skills appeared to exert a direct causal influence on vocabulary acquisition. Subsequently, though, vocabulary knowledge became the major pacemaker in the developmental relationship, with the earlier influence of phonological memory on vocabulary development subsiding to a nonsignificant level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The contributions of phonological awareness and letter-name knowledge to letter-sound acquisition—a cross-classified multilevel model approach.

In the present study, we investigated critical factors in letter-sound acquisition (i.e., letter-name knowledge and phonological awareness) with data from 653 English-speaking kindergartners in the beginning of the year. We examined (a) the contribution of phonological awareness to facilitating letter-sound acquisition from letter names and (b) the probabilities of letter-sound acquisition as a function of letter characteristics (i.e., consonant–vowel letters, vowel–consonant letters, letters with no sound cues, and vowel letters). The results show that letter-name knowledge had a large impact on letter-sound acquisition. Phonological awareness had a larger effect on letter-sound knowledge when letter names were known than when letter names were unknown. Furthermore, students were more likely to know the sounds of consonant–vowel letters (e.g., b and d) than vowel–consonant letters (e.g., l and m) and letters with no sound cues (e.g., h and y) when the letter name was known and phonological awareness was accounted for. Sounds were least likely to be known for letters with no sound cues, but reliable differences from other groups of letters depended on students' levels of phonological awareness and letter-name knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological Processing Skills and Early Reading Abilities in Hong Kong Chinese Kindergarteners Learning to Read English as a Second Language.

The present 9-month longitudinal study investigated relations between Chinese native language phonological processing skills and early Chinese and English reading abilities among 227 kindergarteners in Hong Kong. Phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and short-term verbal memory differed in their relations to concurrent and subsequent Chinese and English word recognition. The significant bidirectional relations between phonological awareness and Chinese reading ability remained even after accounting for the variance due to age, vocabulary, and visual skills performance. When all predictors were considered simultaneously, only phonological awareness remained a significant predictor of Chinese and English reading abilities both concurrently and longitudinally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of phonological processing and inattentive behavior on reading acquisition.

This article reports the findings from a longitudinal study investigating the influence of phonological processing and inattentive behavior on reading acquisition. Data from individually administered measures of phonological processing and reading, as well as teacher ratings of children's behavior, were collected from a cohort of 132 children at 12-month intervals, from kindergarten to 2nd grade. Results from multiple linear regression analyses employing latent constructs of phonological abilities and inattentive behavior provided support for the hypothesized model, with kindergarten measures of inattentiveness and phonological abilities predicting subsequent reading performance. An analysis of reciprocal relationships among these constructs revealed evidence that inattentiveness also interfered with the acquisition of phonological analysis skills. Implications for reading instruction and reading interventions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills.

Three bodies of research that have developed in relative isolation center on each of three kinds of phonological processing: phonological awareness, awareness of the sound structure of language; phonological recoding in lexical access, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to get from the written word to its lexical referent; and phonetic recoding in working memory, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representation system to maintain them efficiently in working memory. In this review we integrate these bodies of research and address the interdependent issues of the nature of phonological abilities and their causal roles in the acquisition of reading skills. Our review supports a causal role for phonological awareness in learning to read, and suggests the possibility of similar causal roles for phonological recoding in lexical access and phonetic recoding in working memory. Most researchers have neglected the probable causal role of learning to read in the development of phonological skills. It is no longer enough to ask whether phonological skills play a causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. The question now is which aspects of phonological processing (e.g., awareness, recoding in lexical access, recoding in working memory) are causally related to which aspects of reading (e.g., word recognition, word analysis, sentence comprehension), at which point in their codevelopment, and what are the directions of these causal relations? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental changes in the manifestation of a phonological deficit in dyslexic children learning to read a regular orthography.

In a longitudinal study, the development of phonological processing abilities was studied in 19 dyslexic, 17 weak, and 19 normal readers learning to read in Dutch. Among other abilities, phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming were assessed in kindergarten, in 1st grade, and in 6th grade. Dyslexic and weak readers had impairments in rapid naming from kindergarten through 6th grade. Their impairments in phonological awareness at the level of phonemes became manifest in 1st grade and tended to disappear at the end of primary school. However, in a second cross-sectional study, including 13 dyslexic and 25 normal readers, dyslexic children's awareness of phonemes was hampered when task demands increased. The various manifestations of a phonological deficit follow distinct developmental pathways. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Kindergarten Prediction of Reading Skills: A Longitudinal Comparative Analysis.

There is considerable focus in public policy on screening children for reading difficulties. Sixty years of research have not resolved questions of what constructs assessed in kindergarten best predict subsequent reading outcomes. This study assessed the relative importance of multiple measures obtained in a kindergarten sample for the prediction of reading outcomes at the end of 1st and 2nd grades. Analyses revealed that measures of phonological awareness, letter sound knowledge, and naming speed consistently accounted for the unique variance across reading outcomes whereas measures of perceptual skills and oral language and vocabulary did not. These results show that measures of letter name and letter sound knowledge, naming speed, and phonological awareness are good predictors of multiple reading outcomes in Grades 1 and 2. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic and phonological information flow in the production lexicon.

When speakers produce words, lexical access proceeds through semantic and phonological levels of processing. If phonological processing begins based on partial semantic information, processing is cascaded; otherwise, it is discrete. In standard models of lexical access, semantically processed words exert phonological effects only if processing is cascaded. In 3 experiments, speakers named pictures of objects with homophone names (ball), while auditory distractor words were heard beginning 150 ms prior to picture onset. Distractors speeded picture naming (compared with controls) only when related to the nondepicted meaning of the picture (e.g., dance), exhibiting an early phonological effect, thereby supporting the cascaded prediction. Distractors slowed picture naming when categorically (e.g., frisbee) related to the depicted picture meaning, but not when associatively (e.g., game) related to it. An interactive activation model is presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of young readers' phonological processing abilities.

In a cross-sectional study of 184 kindergarten and 2nd grade students, confirmatory factor analysis of a battery of phonological and control tasks were used to compare alternative models of young readers' phonological processing abilities. The authors found evidence for 5 distinct but correlated phonological processing abilities. Latent phonological processing abilities were more highly correlated with general cognitive ability than previous reports would suggest, although they accounted for variance in word recognition independent of general cognitive ability. The results of this study, coupled with those of a previous study of prereaders, suggest that phonological abilities are best conceptualized as relatively stable and coherent individual difference attributes, as opposed to relatively unstable measures of reading-related knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological awareness and reading: A chicken and egg problem?

Investigated the causal relationship between metaphonological skills (sound blending and segmentation) and reading/spelling in 2 experiments. In Exp I, data on 46 dyslexic and 44 control Ss in Grades 1–6 were drawn from a longitudinal study in Sweden of 723 Ss so that a number of causal models could be tested by LISREL. Results show that early spelling ability is primarily dependent on metaphonological abilities and only indirectly affected by linguistic and cognitive development. The causal model for reading obtaining empirical support was similar with the exception that it also included a direct causal path from cognitive development to reading. In Exp II, 38 1st graders were assigned to metaphonological training for 8 sessions or to general language activities (control). Ss were pre- and posttested on reading, spelling, sound blending, and segmentation. Results show that training had significant effects on metaphonological skills. Among Ss with the lowest metaphonological pretest performance, specific metaphonological training improved spelling performance more than did general language activities. Findings show that metaphonological abilities have a causal effect on reading and spelling, but no support was found for the reverse causal influence. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pseudohomophone effects and models of word recognition.

Two experiments examined factors that influence processing of pseudohomophones (nonwords such as brane or joak, which sound like words) and nonpseudohomophones (such as brone or joap, which do not sound like words). In Experiment 1, pseudohomophones yielded faster naming latencies and slower lexical-decision latencies than did nonpseudohomophones, replicating results of R. S. McCann and D. Besner (1987) and R. S. McCann, D. Besner, and E. Davelaar (1988). The magnitude of effect was related to subjects' speed in lexical decision but not naming. In Experiment 2, both immediate and delayed naming conditions were used. There was again a significant pseudohomophone effect that did not change in magnitude across conditions. These results indicate that pseudohomophone effects in the lexical-decision and naming tasks have different bases. In lexical decision, they reflect the pseudohomophone's activation of phonological and semantic information associated with words. In naming, they reflect differences in ease of articulating familiar versus unfamiliar pronunciations. Implications of these results concerning models of word recognition are discussed… (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The nature of preschool phonological processing abilities and their relations to vocabulary, general cognitive abilities, and print knowledge.

The development of reading-related phonological processing abilities represents an important developmental milestone in the process of learning to read. In this cross-sectional study, confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the structure of phonological processing abilities in 129 younger preschoolers (M = 40.88 months, SD = 4.65) and 304 older preschoolers (M = 56.49 months, SD = 5.31). A 2-factor model in which Phonological Awareness and Phonological Memory were represented by 1 factor and Lexical Access was represented by a 2nd factor provided the best fit for both samples and was largely invariant across samples. Measures of vocabulary, cognitive abilities, and print knowledge were significantly correlated with both factors, but Phonological Awareness/Memory had unique relations with word reading. Despite significant development of phonological processing abilities across the preschool years and into kindergarten, these results show that the structure of these skills remains invariant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confrontation Naming in Individuals With Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: A Quantitative Analysis of Paraphasic Error Subtypes.

Although confrontation naming deficits have been observed in dominant temporal lobe epilepsy (DTLE), the relative contribution of impoverished phonologic word retrieval and/or semantic knowledge remains unclear. Analysis of verbal-semantic, phonemic-literal, and combination paraphasias produced during confrontation naming by participants with seizure disorders (52 DTLE; 47 nondominant temporal lobe epilepsy [NDTLE]; 54 psychogenic nonepileptic seizures [PNES]) indicated that the frequency of: (a) verbal-semantic paraphasias was similar across groups, (b) phonemic-literal paraphasias was highest in DTLE, and (c) combination paraphasias was lowest in PNES. Confrontation naming ability was most strongly related to phonemic-literal paraphasia frequency in DTLE and to verbal IQ in both NDTLE and PNES. Greater confrontation naming deficits in DTLE may be attributed to impairments in phonological processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation Between Naming and Literacy in Children With Word-Finding Difficulties.

Difficulties with picture naming tasks are associated with literacy problems. When given naming tasks, children with dyslexia are slower to produce words and have a higher proportion of errors (M. Wolf & P. G. Bowers, 1999). However, little is known about the relation between literacy and naming in other populations. This study investigated this relation in 20 children (age 6 years 6 months to 7 years 11 months) with word-finding difficulties. The children in the sample performed very poorly on assessments of naming, but unlike children with dyslexia, they were found to have decoding and spelling abilities within the normal range. In addition, their abilities on phonological awareness tasks were at a similar level to their decoding abilities. In contrast, their performance on reading comprehension and language comprehension measures was significantly worse than their performance on decoding, spelling, and rhyme awareness measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Production, conceptualization and change in distinctive featural categories

This study extends prior investigations of children's abilities to conceptualize distinctive phonological features in development. The purpose was to establish the relationship between a child's productive and conceptual knowledge, and to examine its potential influence on phonological change. Six children evidencing phonological disorders (aged 3;4 to 5;7) participated in evaluations of the productive sound system and the metalinguistic ability to classify phonological information, with particular emphasis on fricatives. Then, children were enrolled in clinical treatment aimed at accurate production of fricatives. Following treatment, production and classification abilities were again tested. Results indicated that if a child's productive knowledge of distinctive featural contrasts changed following treatment, there was also a corresponding change in conceptual knowledge. The specific featural dimensions that were used to classify phonological information were either in parallel to, or in advance of, those features also used in production by the child. Conceptual knowledge was thus equal to or better than productive knowledge for these children.     

Priming and response selection processes in letter classification and identification tasks.

The processing of isolated visual letters was studied by means of a priming paradigm. In alphabetic (letter vs nonletter) classification, any letter prime reduced response times to letter targets. Additional facilitation occurred only with primes physically identical to the target. In letter naming, facilitation was seen with primes nominally identical to the target even when they were physically different. This result is not due to phonological priming because phonologically similar primes had no effect on naming times. Primes nominally different from the target but physically similar to it increased naming times. The classification task seems to be performed through the global monitoring of stored visual knowledge of letters. In contrast, the absolute identification of letters appears to rest on a signal-to-noise statistic derived from an abstract encoding of letter identities. Connectionist simulations provide support for these proposals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genetic and environmental effects of serial naming and phonological awareness on early reading outcomes.

The current study involved 281 early-school-age twin pairs (118 monozygotic, 163 same-sex dizygotic) participating in the ongoing Western Reserve Reading Project (S. A. Petrill, K. Deater-Deckard, L. A. Thompson, & C. Schatschneider, 2006). Twins were tested in their homes by separate examiners on a battery of reading-related skills including phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, word knowledge, and phonological decoding. Results suggested that a core genetic factor accounted for a significant portion of the covariance between phonological awareness, rapid naming, and reading outcomes. However, shared environmental influences related to phonological awareness were also associated with reading skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal fluency deficits in geriatric and nongeriatric chronic schizophrenic patients

This study examined age-related differences and correlates of deficits on phonological and category fluency tasks performed by schizophrenic patients. Equal numbers (n = 41) of geriatric (age > 64) and nongeriatric chronically hospitalized schizophrenic patients were examined with tests of phonological and category fluency, verbal learning and delayed recall, confrontation naming, and reading, as well as overall estimates of cognitive impairment. Both types of fluency tests were performed very poorly by both groups. Age-related differences were found to be statistically significant. In both groups, category fluency impairments were correlated with deficits in naming, while phonological fluency deficits were best predicted by memory impairments. These data suggest that category fluency impairments are part of a general profile of impaired semantic functioning, whereas phonological fluency deficits may be induced by alterations in information processing capacity.