More is more in language learning:reconsidering the less-is-more hypothesis

The Less-is-More hypothesis was proposed to explain age-of-acquisition effects in first language (L1) acquisition and second language (L2) attainment. We scrutinize different renditions of the hypothesis by examining how learning outcomes are affected by (1) limited cognitive capacity, (2) reduced interference resulting from less prior knowledge, and (3) simplified language input. While there is little-to-no evidence of benefits of limited cognitive capacity, there is ample support for a More-is-More account linking enhanced capacity with better L1- and L2-learning outcomes, and reduced capacity with childhood language disorders. Instead, reduced prior knowledge (relative to adults) may afford children with greater flexibility in inductive inference; this contradicts the idea that children benefit from a more constrained hypothesis space. Finally, studies of childdirected speech (CDS) confirm benefits from less complex input at early stages, but also emphasize how greater lexical and syntactic complexity of the input confers benefits in L1-attainment

The influence of individual differences on reading in readers of consistent compared to inconsistent orthographies

Languages differ in terms of how consistently they reflect spelling-sound relationships, and research has found that this may lead to differences in naming (reading aloud) processes. Readers themselves differ from each other in terms of relevant task performance, such as nonword decoding ability, vocabulary knowledge, spelling ability and reading experience. Such tasks tap into individual differences which have also been shown to influence the reading aloud process. The present study investigated whether language-related differences in reading aloud persisted even when reading-related individual differences were taken into account, and how effects of individual differences may vary between languages. The comparison necessitated a number of preparatory tasks to facilitate cross-language comparison. This included the computation of spelling-sound consistencies for both languages, the collection of German age-of-acquisition ratings and the creation of comparable measures to capture reading experience in both languages. For the naming study, reading aloud reaction times (RTs) on a set of 85 cognates were compared between skilled readers of English and German. Readers also completed tasks to assess individual differences. Linear mixed-effects modelling analysis showed that language differences remained, but that individual differences contributed additionally to explaining reading performance. To further examine how individual differences may impact differently on naming RTs between languages, the same data set was split four times into those who had scored higher and lower in each of the four individual differences (ID) tasks. Each ID group was then analysed separately. This resulted in eight different analyses. The language effect remained significant for all ID groups. Variations in effect patterns between different ID groups were observed. Effect patterns were more similar between languages for those readers who had scored higher in the ID tasks. Strong nonword decoders emerged as the fastest reader group for both languages, indicating that nonword decoding indexes a vital processing mechanism for skilled readers of different languages. As no significant interactions were found involving language or language and IDs for this group, strong decoders seemed to be most similar in their naming across the two languages. Although semantics were used by readers of both languages, person-level semantic knowledge was more beneficial for readers of the opaque script, especially when decoding skills were weaker. Good spelling ability facilitated naming in both languages, but differences between languages became apparent in weaker spellers, as those reading English were more influenced by other IDs, such as decoding skill. Unexpectedly, print exposure was not the strongest modulator out of all individual differences. Together the results suggest that alongside language differences, individual differences are important factors to be considered to account for a universal process of reading aloud

Development of a sociocultural phonological program to support young Indigenous children’s consonant production

Oral language proficiency and phonological skills underpin children’s literacy development. In Australian schools, literacy is based on Standard Australian English (SAE). Children who speak an Indigenous language or a different dialect of English are expected to have the same understanding of SAE as children who have been taught to speak or understand SAE from birth. For some Indigenous children, school may be the place where they first hear some SAE sounds. As indicated by a substantial body of research, oral language forms the basis of early literacy; Indigenous children, if they have no specific support in learning SAE as a second dialect, are likely to fall behind academically, and often remain behind their peers throughout their years of schooling. Both my experience as an educator and the relevant literature suggest that SAE consonants are an area of oral literacy that can be particularly challenging for children. There are considerable differences between the articulation of consonants in Indigenous dialects of English and SAE, particularly with obstruents. If Indigenous children are to bridge the differences between their Indigenous dialects of English and SAE, they need targeted assistance in the pronunciation of SAE consonants in their literacy lessons. The purpose of this study, then, was to develop guiding principles for a consonant phonological program for five- to seven-year-old Indigenous children that could affect their literacy learning. Design-based research (DBR) was chosen as an approach to inform the design of a consonant phonological program that would best support Indigenous learners by incorporating practitioner knowledge and community support. DBR provides the means to systematically test and refine the program and provide principles that could be used in the development and implementation of similar programs in the future

Roles of Cognitive and Sociopsychological Individual Differences in Second Language Pronunciation Development in Classroom Settings: A Dynamic Systems Theory Approach

Drawing on the framework of Dynamic Systems Theory that affords a holistic approach to understand the language development, the current study conducted a cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of how 51 Japanese learners of English with various experiential, cognitive and sociopsychological profiles differentially attained two different aspects of L2 pronunciation (comprehensibility, accentedness) in foreign language classroom settings. The participants engaged in four weeks of explicit pronunciation instruction. Their extemporaneous speech was collected via a picture description task at the beginning and end of the project. Subsequently, the pre- and post-test samples were rated for accentedness and comprehensibility, and then linked to a range of individual differences (IDs) factors including aptitude, motivation, anxiety, and English learning experience specific to L2 pronunciation development. At the outset of the project, the cross-sectional results suggested (a) three types of IDs examined in the current thesis were relatively independent from each other, and (b) recent L2 learning outside the classroom and anxiety levels were the strong predictors of both comprehensibility and accentedness, whereas and phonemic coding ability was uniquely linked to accentedness. Concerning the improvement in comprehensibility and accentedness after the intervention, the result of longitudinal study demonstrated the overall effectiveness of pronunciation instruction. However, no IDs showed interaction effect on the effectiveness of pronunciation instruction. Based on the findings, I discuss L2 pronunciation learning as a multifaceted, dynamic and ever-changing system as a result of complex interactions between multiple ID factors and pronunciation dimensions

Intervening to alleviate word-finding difficulties in children: case series data and a computational modelling foundation

We evaluated a simple computational model of productive vocabulary acquisition, applied to simulating two case studies of 7-year-old children with developmental word-finding difficulties across four core behavioural tasks. Developmental models were created, which captured the deficits of each child. In order to predict the effects of intervention, we exposed the computational models to simulated behavioural interventions of two types, targeting the improvement of either phonological or semantic knowledge. The model was then evaluated by testing the predictions from the simulations against the actual results from an intervention study carried out with the two children. For one child it was predicted that the phonological intervention would be effective, and the semantic intervention would not. This was borne out in the behavioural study. For the second child, the predictions were less clear and depended on the nature of simulated damage to the model. The behavioural study found an effect of semantic but not phonological intervention. Through an explicit computational simulation, we therefore employed intervention data to evaluate our theoretical understanding of the processes underlying acquisition of lexical items for production and how they may vary in children with developmental language difficulties

The conscious awareness and underlying representation of syllabic stress in skilled adult readers and adults with developmental dyslexia

The relationship between phonemic awareness and literacy ability is well established in the developmental and adult reading literatures. Recent research indicates that awareness of the rhythmic patterns present in spoken language (i.e. prosody) may also be an important predictor of reading ability. Researchers have demonstrated that sensitivity to speech prosody can facilitate speech segmentation and the development of phoneme awareness. Awareness of the rhythmic patterns in spoken words and phrases is also known to play a direct role in phonological decoding, reading comprehension and learning to use punctuation. These findings have the potential to enhance our understanding of typical reading development and inform theories of how poor phonological and auditory skills contribute to dyslexia. This research also helps extend our knowledge of skilled and impaired reading to a wider range of reading materials (e.g. multisyllabic words) and thus raises issues relevant to cognitive models of visual word recognition. A small number of studies have demonstrated that sensitivity to the prosodic patterns in spoken language is reduced in children with dyslexia. However, there is currently no published research investigating the prosodic processing skills of adults with dyslexia. The precise nature of the prosodic processing deficit associated with dyslexia is also unclear. These gaps in the literature are problematic because phonological processing is multifaceted and the relationship between specific phonological skills and reading ability may change over time. This thesis presents four cross sectional studies in which adults with dyslexia were compared with control participants matched for age and IQ on various tasks designed to measure prosodic processing. The experiments also contrast the conscious awareness of prosodic structure with the underlying representation of syllabic stress assignment in the mental lexicon and the ability to acquire spelling-sound correspondences for decoding stress assignment in multisyllabic words. Participants with dyslexia showed reduced awareness of lexical and metrical prosody and these skills were found to be significantly associated with, and predictive of, phoneme awareness and phonological decoding ability (Experiments 1a and 2). In contrast, adults with dyslexia showed normal patterns of stress based priming at magnitudes similar to controls (Experiments 1b and 2). Similar, although somewhat weaker results were also obtained when lexical stress was primed with abstract stress templates rather than real-word stimuli (Experiment 3). Participants with dyslexia also showed normal effects of spelling-stress congruency on lexical decision times for disyllabic words (Experiment 4). The overall pattern of results strongly suggests that the prosodic processing problems associated with dyslexia in adulthood are limited to tasks requiring participants to access and consciously reflect upon their knowledge of prosodic structure, or to process information related to prosodic structure in an abstract way. In contrast, the ability of adults with dyslexia to represent lexical stress assignment in the mental lexicon, assemble novel prosodic representations, and learn correspondences between lexical stress assignment and aspects of orthographic structure appears to be intact. Encouragingly, this pattern of results is consistent with recent findings reported in the domain of phonemic processing

Debunking Myths: Reading Development in Children with Down Syndrome

There is a considerable and growing body of research investigating reading development in children with Down syndrome. However, there appears to be a common gap between the research evidence and instructional practices. It has been argued that teachers have insufficient information to enable them to implement effective literacy instruction with children with Down syndrome. This has important implications for teacher education. The current paper draws on past and current research evidence to consider five common misunderstandings or ‘myths’ that exist in regards to reading development in children with Down syndrome regarding (1) receptive and expressive language, (2) phonological awareness and phonic decoding, (3) ‘reading readiness’ or (non)linear development, (4) optimal learning age and, (5) reading comprehension. A case example is presented and implications for teaching practice are explore