A failure to learn to read well is a particularly troublesome handicap in our society, as success in both the educational and professional world depends on one's ability to effectively comprehend written text. The long-term goal of this project is an enhanced understanding of the problem of dyslexia, and the development of tests which can predict the likelihood that a kindergarten child will encounter problems in learning to read. This is to be achieved by determining the extent of spoken language processing impairments among readers in the early elementary grades, and by asking whether the identification of similar impairments among kindergarten children predict future reading problems. Of central interest is the relation between reading ability and children's ability to process the sound elements of language and the regular patterns among them (phonological processing skills). A particular focus will be on whether good and poor beginning readers differ in the ability to use the intonation and the duration of the sound elements and pauses within a spoken utterance (prosodic cues) as cues to the utterance's meaning. Good and poor readers' ability to comprehend prosodic cues that distinguish minimal pairs of sentences and noun phrases (such as """"""""blackbird feeder"""""""" vs. """"""""black birdfeeder"""""""") is the concern in the first phase of the project, where tests have been designed to study the perception and interpretation of intonation, word duration and the duration of pauses between words by children in the first and third grades. One goal will be to establish preliminary indications that comprehension of these cues poses more of a problem for poor beginning readers than for the better readers in their classrooms. Another will be to clarify the bases of deficient use of prosodic cues by children who are poor readers: whether it reflects deficient perceptual skills, memory skills, and/or a problem with interpretation. The second phase of research will draw on the results of the first phase, and on some other evidence that reading ability is related to specific phonological processing skills that are responsible for the perception, short-term memory and comprehension of speech. Based on these combined results, two longitudinal studies will be undertaken in which tests of phonological skills are administered in the Spring of the kindergarten year, and reading ability is measured in the first grade. Time-log analysis of the data will determine whether the level of phonological skills, in general, and those skills involving prosodic cues, in particular, predicted future levels of reading ability.
| Mann, V A (1993) Phoneme awareness and future reading ability. J Learn Disabil 26:259-69 |
| Mann, V A; Cowin, E; Schoenheimer, J (1989) Phonological processing, language comprehension, and reading ability. J Learn Disabil 22:76-89 |
| Mann, V A; Brady, S (1988) Reading disability: the role of language deficiencies. J Consult Clin Psychol 56:811-6 |
| Mann, V A (1986) Distinguishing universal and language-dependent levels of speech perception: evidence from Japanese listeners' perception of English ""l"" and ""r"". Cognition 24:169-96 |
| Mann, V A (1986) Phonological awareness: the role of reading experience. Cognition 24:65-92 |
