Perception of tone and aspiration contrasts in Chinese children with dyslexia.

BACKGROUND Previous research has shown a relationship between speech perception and dyslexia in alphabetic writing. In these studies speech perception was measured using phonemes, a prominent feature of alphabetic languages. Given the primary importance of lexical tone in Chinese language processing, we tested the extent to which lexical tone and aspiration, two fundamental dimensions of Cantonese speech not represented in writing, would distinguish dyslexic from non-dyslexic 8-year-old Chinese children. Tone and aspiration were tested in addition to other phonological processing skills across groups to determine the importance of different aspects of phonological sensitivity in relation to reading disability. METHODS Dyslexic children and age-matched and reading-level controls were tested on their categorical perception of minimal pairs contrasting in tone and aspiration, phonological awareness, rapid digit naming, and Chinese reading abilities. RESULTS While performing similarly to reading-level controls, dyslexic children perceived tone and aspiration contrasts less categorically and accurately than age-matched controls. They also performed more poorly than the age-matched controls on rapid digit naming and a measure of phonological awareness testing children's sensitivity to different grain size units. CONCLUSIONS Dyslexia in non-alphabetic Chinese correlates with the categorical organization and accuracy of Cantonese speech perception, along the tone and aspiration dimensions. This association with reading is mediated by its association with phonological awareness. Therefore, dyslexia is universally at least partly a function of basic speech and phonological processes independent of whether the speech dimensions in question are coded in writing.

[1]  Xiaolin Zhou,et al.  Auditory and speech processing and reading development in Chinese school children: behavioural and ERP evidence. , 2005, Dyslexia.

[2]  Paul Bertelson,et al.  The onset of literacy: Liminal remarks , 1986, Cognition.

[3]  Him Cheung,et al.  The development of phonological awareness: effects of spoken language experience and orthography , 2001, Cognition.

[4]  J. Ziegler,et al.  Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: a psycholinguistic grain size theory. , 2005, Psychological bulletin.

[5]  Paul Boersma,et al.  Praat, a system for doing phonetics by computer , 2002 .

[6]  Alexander L. Francis,et al.  On the (non)categorical perception of lexical tones , 2003, Perception & psychophysics.

[7]  Mark S. Seidenberg,et al.  Auditory word identification in dyslexic and normally achieving readers. , 2007, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[8]  Angela Chan Yuen Yuen.  A perceptual study of tones in Cantonese , 1971 .

[9]  Paul Boersma,et al.  Praat: doing phonetics by computer , 2003 .

[10]  K. Eklund,et al.  Brain Responses to Changes in Speech Sound Durations Differ Between Infants With and Without Familial Risk for Dyslexia , 2002, Developmental neuropsychology.

[11]  Simpson W. L. Wong,et al.  Word recognition and cognitive profiles of Chinese pre-school children at risk for dyslexia through language delay or familial history of dyslexia. , 2007, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[12]  Paul Bertelson,et al.  Metaphonological abilities of adults illiterates : new evidence of heterogeneity , 1989 .

[13]  C. McBride-Chang,et al.  Models of speech perception and phonological processing in reading. , 1996, Child development.

[14]  J. Jenkins,et al.  Perception and production of lexical tones by 3-year-old, Mandarin-speaking children. , 2005, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[15]  C. V. van Hasselt,et al.  Tone Perception Ability of Cantonese-Speaking Children , 2002, Language and speech.

[16]  Patricia K. Kohl.  Early linguistic experience and phonetic perception: implications for theories of developmental speech perception , 1993 .

[17]  Paul Bertelson,et al.  The emergence of phonological awareness : Comparative approaches , 1991 .

[18]  Paul Bertelson,et al.  The cognitive psychology of literacy: some basic findings , 1994 .

[19]  C. Ho,et al.  Naming-speed deficits and phonological memory deficits in Chinese developmental dyslexia. , 1999 .

[20]  Catherine McBride-Chang,et al.  Understanding Chinese Developmental Dyslexia: Morphological Awareness as a Core Cognitive Construct. , 2006 .

[21]  C. Ho,et al.  The phonological deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia , 2000 .

[22]  C. Kuijpers.  Perception of the voicing contrast by Dutch children and adults , 1996 .

[23]  C. Ho,et al.  Cognitive profiling and preliminary subtyping in Chinese developmental dyslexia , 2004, Cognition.

[24]  Catherine E. Snow,et al.  Preventing reading difficulties in young children , 1998 .

[25]  V. Ciocca,et al.  The development of the perception of Cantonese lexical tones , 2003 .

[26]  J. Morais,et al.  The Effects of Literacy on the Recognition of Dichotic Words , 1987, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[27]  Julia L. Evans,et al.  Categorical perception of speech by children with specific language impairments. , 2005, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[28]  Mm. Liabre.  Standard Progressive Matrices , 1984 .

[29]  Joseph K. Torgesen,et al.  Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing , 1997 .

[30]  Catherine McBride-Chang,et al.  Syllable, Phoneme, and Tone: Psycholinguistic Units in Early Chinese and English Word Recognition , 2008 .

[31]  M. Wolf,et al.  The double-deficit hypothesis for the developmental dyslexias. , 1999 .

[32]  C. Ho,et al.  Word learning deficit among Chinese dyslexic children. , 2006, Journal of child language.

[33]  J. Mitchell.  Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing , 2001 .

[34]  Mark S. Seidenberg,et al.  Language deficits in dyslexic children: speech perception, phonology, and morphology. , 2000, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[35]  D. Chiappe,et al.  Speech perception, lexicality, and reading skill. , 2001, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[36]  Ben Maassen,et al.  Identification and discrimination of voicing and place-of-articulation in developmental dyslexia , 2001 .

[37]  Heikki Lyytinen,et al.  Event-Related Potentials and Consonant Differentiation in Newborns with Familial Risk for Dyslexia , 2001, Journal of learning disabilities.

[38]  Jason L. Anthony,et al.  The Nature of Phonological Awareness: Converging Evidence From Four Studies of Preschool and Early Grade School Children. , 2004 .

[39]  J. Lurito,et al.  Temporal integration of speech prosody is shaped by language experience: An fMRI study , 2003, Brain and Language.

[40]  D. Burnham,et al.  Chinese and English Infants' Tone Perception: Evidence for Perceptual Reorganization , 2006 .

[41]  Catherine McBride-Chang,et al.  Phonological awareness in young Chinese children. , 2008, Developmental science.

[42]  J. Démonet,et al.  Perceptual discrimination of speech sounds in developmental dyslexia. , 2001, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[43]  Dennis L. Molfese,et al.  Reading and cognitive abilities: Longitudinal studies of brain and behavior changes in young children , 2002 .

[44]  B. Dodd,et al.  The acquisition of phonology by Cantonese-speaking children , 1995, Journal of Child Language.

[45]  Heikki Lyytinen,et al.  Psychophysiology of developmental dyslexia: a review of findings including studies of children at risk for dyslexia , 2005, Journal of Neurolinguistics.

[46]  P. Bertelson,et al.  Literacy training and speech segmentation , 1986, Cognition.