Phoneme perception is critically involved in alphabetic reading, however current findings may not hold for bilinguals. In the CROWN Game, children hear tokens of familiar words across a voice-onset time continuum (-60ms to 90ms). We measured individual VOT threshold and the slope of the transition between categories in 138 English/Chinese speaking bilinguals in Singapore kindergartens. The task showed a wide spread of scores and good split-half reliability. In a preregistered analysis, we examined whether bilingual balance or order of acquisition influenced categorical perception of English phonemes /b/ and /p/. GLMMs revealed categorical perception was independent from language exposure. This suggests the CROWN Game is valid for use with bilingual children, including as a possible screening tool for future reading difficulties.
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