Allophonic mode of speech perception in dyslexia

• Published in: Journal of experimental child psychology Vol. 87; no. 4; pp. 336 - 361
• Main Authors: Serniclaes, Willy, Heghe, Sandra Van, Mousty, Philippe, Carré, René, Sprenger-Charolles, Liliane
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Diego, CA Elsevier Inc 01.04.2004; Elsevier
• Subjects: Auditory Discrimination; Auditory Perception; Biological and medical sciences; Case-Control Studies; Categorical perception; Child; Child clinical studies; Cognitive Mapping; Cognitive science; Communication; Dyslexia; Dyslexia - psychology; Female; Humans; Language and communication disorders; Linguistics; Male; Medical sciences; Neonates; Oral Language; Phoneme Grapheme Correspondence; Phonemes; Phonetic predispositions; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Speech Communication; Speech development; Speech Perception; Dyslexia; Phonetic predispositions; Speech development; Categorical perception; Human; Reading disorder; Cognition; Verbal perception; Language disorder; Communication disorder; Hearing; School age; Language development; Phonetics; Speech; Stimulus discrimination; Child
• ISSN: 0022-0965; 1096-0457
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2004.02.001

Perceptual discrimination between speech sounds belonging to different phoneme categories is better than that between sounds falling within the same category. This property, known as “categorical perception,” is weaker in children affected by dyslexia. Categorical perception develops from the predispositions of newborns for discriminating all potential phoneme categories in the world's languages. Predispositions that are not relevant for phoneme perception in the ambient language are usually deactivated during early childhood. However, the current study shows that dyslexic children maintain a higher sensitivity to phonemic distinctions irrelevant in their linguistic environment. This suggests that dyslexic children use an allophonic mode of speech perception that, although without straightforward consequences for oral communication, has obvious implications for the acquisition of alphabetic writing. Allophonic perception specifically affects the mapping between graphemes and phonemes, contrary to other manifestations of dyslexia, and may be a core deficit.