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Poster D65, Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 5:15 – 7:00 pm, Restaurant Hall

Steady use of phonological detail from preschool to 2nd grade

Anne Bauch1, Claudia Friedrich1, Ulrike Schild1;1University of Tuebingen

Previous research indicated that readers appear to process speech in more detail than illiterates. In this longitudinal study we investigated plasticity of implicit lexical representations in relation to growing reading proficiency in children under a developmental perspective. 31 children were invited at preschool, after the 1st grade and after the 2nd grade of school to complete a spoken word identification task. We collected response time latencies and event-related potentials (ERPs) at all points of measurement. We aimed to evaluate facilitated processing of words (targets) which were preceded by identical syllables (primes, e.g. ki – kino, engl. cinema) in comparison to prime – target combinations with phonological variation in the onset phoneme (e.g. gi – kino). Response times as well as well as ERPs revealed that priming was less effective when the prime diverged phonologically from the target. We found the same activation pattern across all age groups. Already at preschool age, children depicted high sensitivity for small phoneme mismatch, indexed by an early N100 effect. Enhanced reading and writing skills did not correspond to more detailed phonological processing in 1st and 2nd graders. Together these findings imply that phonological sensitivity in preschool age might relate to the development of pre-cursor functions of reading, such as enhanced phonemic awareness.

Themes: Perception: Auditory, Development
Method: Electrophysiology (MEG/EEG/ECOG)

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