Visual and Auditory Phonological Processing During Reading and Listening

Abstract

Reading and listening are two skills used in language processing. Many studies have investigated reading ability but fewer have looked at listening skills and no studies to date have studied the association between the two. This dissertation looks at the relationship between reading skill and listening skill and how this association may be used as a measure of phonological processing efficiency. Reading speed scores were found to be correlated with listening speed scores. The difference between these standardized scores was taken (reading listening difference or RLD scores) and compared to other tasks. RLD scores were found to be significantly related to language tasks that access phonological processing but not semantic processing, indicating the RLD effect is phonological. Other confounding factors such as auditory non-linguistic processing, and general cognitive processing were ruled out and not reliably correlated with RLD scores. Implications of this research are discussed, including possible ways to fit this research with current models of reading.