Individual Differences in Subphonemic Sensitivity and Phonological Skills

Abstract

Many studies have established a link between phonological abilities (indexed by phonological awareness and phonological memory tasks) and typical and atypical reading development. Individuals who perform poorly on phonological assessments have been mostly assumed to have underspecified (or “fuzzy”) phonological re- presentations, with typical phonemic categories, but with greater category overlap due to imprecise encoding. An alternative posits that poor readers have overspecified phonological representations, with speech sounds perceived allophonically (phonetically distinct variants of a single phonemic category). On both accounts, mismatch between phonological categories and orthography leads to reading difficulty. Here, we consider the implications of these accounts for online speech processing. We used eye tracking and an individual differences approach to assess sensitivity to subphonemic detail in a community sample of young adults with a wide range of reading-related skills. Subphonemic sensitivity inversely correlated with meta-phonological task performance, consistent with overspecification.

Individual differences in decoding skill, print exposure, and cortical structure in young adults

“…For example, vocabulary knowledge was strongly correlated to decoding ( r = .684, p < .0001), and moderately to print exposure ( r = .552, p < .001); the latter measures were themselves also moderately correlated ( r = .408, p = .015). Overall, the observed correlations are consistent with many other studies that have measured a broad range of literacy skills (e.g., Braze et al, 2007, 2016; Cromley, Snyder-Hogan, & Luciw-Dubas, 2010; Kukona et al, 2016; Li et al, 2017; Long et al, 2017; Long, Prat, Johns, Morris, & Jonathan, 2008; Macaruso & Shankweiler, 2010; Van Dyke et al, 2014). …”

“…The neurobiological bases of literacy skill have not been as extensively studied in young adults as in early language learners (Curtis, 2002), and even less is known about young adult readers who are not enrolled in (and may not plan to obtain) post-secondary education. Based on our previous work with this population, we expected a broad range in literacy-related skills across participants (Braze et al, 2007, 2011, 2016; Johns, Matsuki, & Van Dyke, 2015; Kukona et al, 2016; Kuperman & Van Dyke, 2011; Li et al, 2017; Magnuson et al, 2011; Shankweiler et al, 2008; Van Dyke et al, 2014), which confers an advantage in our power to detect individual differences (for discussion see Peterson, 2001). …”