Usha Goswami - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Usha Goswami

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Jun 25, 2019

Language lies at the heart of our experience as humans and disorders of language acquisition carr... more Language lies at the heart of our experience as humans and disorders of language acquisition carry severe developmental costs. Rhythmic processing lies at the heart of language acquisition. Here I review our understanding of the perceptual and neural mechanisms that support language acquisition, from a novel amplitude modulation perspective. Amplitude modulation patterns in infant-directed and child-directed speech support the perceptual experience of rhythm, and the brain encodes these rhythm patterns in part via neuroelectric oscillations. When brain rhythms align themselves with (entrain to) acoustic rhythms, speech intelligibility improves. Recent advances in the auditory neuroscience of speech processing enable studies of neuronal oscillatory entrainment in children and infants. The 'amplitude modulation phase hierarchy' theoretical perspective on language acquisition is applicable across languages, and cross-language investigations adopting this novel perspective would be valuable for the field.

Psicología Educativa: Revista de los Psicólogos de la Educación, Dec 1, 2015

La neurociencia podría transformar la educación, pues proporciona nuevos métodos para comprender ... more La neurociencia podría transformar la educación, pues proporciona nuevos métodos para comprender el aprendizaje y el desarrollo cognitivo, sus mecanismos causales y una forma empírica de evaluar la eficacia de diferentes pedagogías. No obstante, éste sería un objetivo a largo plazo. Desde la neurociencia educativa se debería empezar estudiando cómo los sistemas cognitivos se construyen sobre los sensoriales a lo largo del desarrollo. Aquí me centraré en el lenguaje. Peque ñas diferencias individuales iniciales en una función sensorial, por ejemplo la auditiva, podrían ser el origen de notables diferencias individuales en el desarrollo lingüístico. La neurociencia podría proporcionar una comprensión detallada de los mecanismos causales del desarrollo que vinculan la audición, el desarrollo fonológico y el desarrollo de la alfabetización. Este tipo de investigación neurocientífica básica podría orientar al campo de la educación y la pedagogía explorando los efectos que sobre estos mecanismos ejercen diferentes contextos pedagógicos y de aprendizaje.

Onset and Rime Awareness and Analogies in Reading

Reading Research Quarterly, 1992

Cognition In Children

Part 1 Cognition in infancy: the building blocks of cognitive development knowledge representatio... more Part 1 Cognition in infancy: the building blocks of cognitive development knowledge representation, reasoning, problem solving and learning conceptual development the development of causal reasoning. Part 2 The development of memory: infantile amnesia, symbolic representation and different memory systems strategies for remembering, metamemory and cognitive development logical reasoning in childhood Piaget's theory of logical development.

What does it mean to think scientifi cally? We might label a preschooler ' s curious question, a ... more What does it mean to think scientifi cally? We might label a preschooler ' s curious question, a high -school student ' s answer on a physics exam, and scientists ' progress in mapping the human genome as instances of scientifi c thinking. But if we are to classify such disparate phenomena under a single heading, it is essential that we specify what it is that they have in common. Alternatively, we might defi ne scientifi c thinking narrowly, as a specifi c reasoning strategy (such as the control -of -variables strategy that has dominated research on the development of scientifi c thinking), or as the thinking characteristic of a narrow population (scientifi c thinking is what scientists do). But to do so is to seriously limit the interest and signifi cance the phenomenon holds. This chapter begins, then, with an attempt to defi ne scientifi c thinking in an inclusive way that encompasses not only the preceding examples, but numerous other instances of thinking, including many not typically associated with science.

Orthographic Analogies and Reading Development

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 1988

Given the interest in the use of orthographic analogies in skilled reading, the role of analogies... more Given the interest in the use of orthographic analogies in skilled reading, the role of analogies in reading development has received surprisingly little attention. The experiments presented here examine three important developmental issues: whether beginning readers can make orthographic analogies, how the consistency of spelling–sound relations affects this ability, and whether orthographic analogies are used in reading prose. It is concluded that orthographic analogies have an important role to play in reading development, and some suggestions are offered as to why this may be so.

Rhymes are important: a comment on Savage

Journal of Research in Reading, 2001

Savage (2001) makes 3 basic claims about the scientific database concerning rhyme and analogy in ... more Savage (2001) makes 3 basic claims about the scientific database concerning rhyme and analogy in reading. The first is that the relationship between rhyme and reading remains controversial. The second is that there is doubt about the relevance of children’s ability to make orthographic analogies for classroom reading instruction. The third is that training studies in reading have shown that rhyme is not important. These claims are considered in the current paper.

Journal of Research in Reading, 1995

Recent research on the nature of phonological development has led to a growing understanding of h... more Recent research on the nature of phonological development has led to a growing understanding of how children set about learning connections between letters and sounds. In particular, research on the emergence of onset-rime awareness has led to a growing interest in the usefulness of orthographic analogies in learning to read, not least among teachers and educators (e.g. . This growing interest in onsets, rimes and analogies has been accompanied, however, by some unfortunate misunderstandings (e.g., Chew, 1994) concerning what the analogy approach to reading does and does not imply about teaching practice. This paper seeks to provide a simple outline of analogy theory, and then to address some misunderstandings of the analogy approach. Analogies in reading involve using the spelling-sound pattern of one word, such as beak, as a basis for working out the spelling-sound correspondence of a new word, such as peak. Early analogy research (e.g., ) compared 6-yearold children's analogies between words like beak and new words like bean (which shares the initial 3 letters with beak) and peak (which shares the final 3 letters with beak). Two strong findings emerged from this research. The first was that analogies between the ends of words (beak-peak) were much easier for young children to draw than analogies between the beginnings of words (beak-bean). The second was that end analogies (beak-peak) emerged first developmentally. In discussing this pattern of analogy use, suggested that the salience of shared rhymes in 'end' analogies might be linked to the sequence of

Rhythmic processing in children with developmental dyslexia: Auditory and motor rhythms link to reading and spelling

Journal of Physiology-Paris, 2008

Potential links between the language and motor systems in the brain have long attracted the inter... more Potential links between the language and motor systems in the brain have long attracted the interest of developmental psychologists. In this paper, we investigate a link often observed (e.g., [Wolff, P.H., 2002. Timing precision and rhythm in developmental dyslexia. Reading and Writing, 15 (1), 179-206.] between motor tapping and written language skills. We measure rhythmic finger tapping (paced by a metronome beat versus unpaced) and motor dexterity, phonological and auditory processing in 10-year old children, some of whom had a diagnosis of developmental dyslexia. We report links between paced motor tapping, auditory rhythmic processing and written language development. Motor dexterity does not explain these relationships. In regression analyses, paced finger tapping explained unique variance in reading and spelling. An interpretation based on the importance of rhythmic timing for both motor skills and language development is proposed.

Orthographic Analogies and Phonological Priming: A Comment on Bowey, Vaughan, and Hansen (1998)

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1999

J. A. Bowey, L. Vaughan, and J. Hansen (1998, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 68, 108-1... more J. A. Bowey, L. Vaughan, and J. Hansen (1998, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 68, 108-133) carried out two experiments on 6- and 7-year-old children's use of orthographic analogies in word reading. They reported that, following apparently stringent controls for phonological priming effects, beginning analogies (beak-bean) were more frequent in this age group than rime (beak-peak) analogies. From this, they concluded that beginning readers do not reliably use orthographic rimes in reading, even in the clue word task (p. 129). However, the clue word task was not used in this study. This comment highlights two problems with Bowey et al.'s paper. The first is a theoretical one, and the second is methodological. Firstly, Bowey et al. base their investigation on a misunderstanding of U. Goswami and P. E. Bryant's (1990, Phonological skills and learning to read, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum) claims about the role of rhyme and analogy in beginning reading. Secondly, methodological weaknesses, in particular unintended intralist priming effects, seriously limit the conclusions that can be drawn from Bowey et al.'s booklet analogy task.

Developmental Science, May 10, 2019

The Seeds of Literacy', to the 3 rd and 2 nd authors. We thank Maria Cristou-Ergos, Scott O'Lough... more The Seeds of Literacy', to the 3 rd and 2 nd authors. We thank Maria Cristou-Ergos, Scott O'Loughlin, and Hana Zjakic for their assistance with participant recruitment, data collection, and data analyses, and Johnson Chen for his assistance with the development of the experimental software. We also thank all the infants and their parents for their valuable time and interest in this research.

Dyslexia, Jan 28, 2020

DP110105123, 'The Seeds of Literacy', to the 3 rd and 2 nd authors. We thank Maria Cristou-Ergos,... more DP110105123, 'The Seeds of Literacy', to the 3 rd and 2 nd authors. We thank Maria Cristou-Ergos, Scott O'Loughlin, and Hana Zjakic for their assistance with participant recruitment, data collection, and data analyses, and Johnson Chen for his assistance with the development of the experimental software. We also thank all the infants and their parents for their valuable time and interest in this research. Children of reading age diagnosed with dyslexia show deficits in reading and spelling skills, but early markers of later dyslexia are already present in infancy in auditory processing and phonological domains. Deficits in lexical development are not typically associated with dyslexia. Nevertheless, it is possible that early auditory/phonological deficits would have detrimental effects on the encoding and storage of novel lexical items. Word-learning difficulties have been demonstrated in school-aged dyslexic children using paired associate learning tasks, but earlier manifestations in infants who are at family risk for dyslexia have not been investigated. This study assessed novel word learning in 19-month-old infants atrisk for dyslexia (by virtue of having one dyslexic parent) and infants not at-risk for any developmental disorder. Infants completed a word-learning task that required them to map two novel words to their corresponding novel referents. Not at-risk infants showed increased looking time to the novel referents at test compared to at-risk infants. These findings demonstrate, for the first time, that at-risk infants show differences in novel word-learning (fast-mapping) tasks compared to not at-risk infants. Our findings have implications for the development and consolidation of early lexical and phonological skills in infants at family risk of later dyslexia.

Open Mind, Sep 1, 2017

The temporal modulation structure of adult-directed speech (ADS) is thought to be encoded by neur... more The temporal modulation structure of adult-directed speech (ADS) is thought to be encoded by neuronal oscillations in the auditory cortex that fluctuate at different temporal rates. Oscillatory activity is thought to phase-align to amplitude modulations in speech at corresponding rates, thereby supporting parsing of the signal into linguistically relevant units. The temporal modulation structure of infant-directed speech (IDS) is unexplored. Here we compare the amplitude modulation (AM) structure of IDS recorded from mothers speaking, over three occasions, to their 7-, 9-, and 11-month-old infants, and the same mothers speaking ADS. Analysis of the modulation spectrum in each case revealed that modulation energy in the theta band was significantly greater in ADS than in IDS, whereas in the delta band, modulation energy was significantly greater for IDS than ADS. Furthermore, phase alignment between delta-and theta-band AMs was stronger in IDS compared to ADS. This remained the case when IDS and ADS were rate-normalized to control for differences in speech rate. These data indicate stronger rhythmic synchronization and acoustic temporal regularity in IDS compared to ADS, structural acoustic differences that may be important for early language learning.

Infant Behavior & Development, Nov 1, 2019

Phonological constancy refers to infants' ability to disregard variations in the phonetic realisa... more Phonological constancy refers to infants' ability to disregard variations in the phonetic realisation of speech sounds that do not indicate lexical contrast, e.g., when listening to accented speech. In typically-developing infants, this ability develops between 15-and 19months of age, coinciding with the consolidation of infants' native phonological competence and vocabulary growth. Here we investigated the developmental time course of phonological constancy in infants at family risk for developmental dyslexia, using a longitudinal design. Developmental dyslexia is a disorder affecting the acquisition of reading and spelling skills, and it also affects early auditory processing, speech perception, and lexical acquisition. Infants at-risk and not at-risk for dyslexia, based on a family history of dyslexia, participated when they were 15-, 19-, and 26-months of age. Phonological constancy was indexed by comparing at-risk and not at-risk infants' ability to recognise familiar words in two preferential looking tasks: (1) a task using words presented in their native accent, and (2) a task using words presented in a non-native accent. We expected a delay in phonological constancy for the at-risk infants. As predicted, in the non-native accent task, not at-risk infants recognised familiar words by 19 months, but at-risk infants did not. The control infants thus exhibited phonological constancy. By 26 months, at-risk toddlers did show successful word recognition in the native accent task. However, for the non-native accent task at 26 months, neither at-risk nor control infants showed familiar word recognition. These findings are discussed in terms of the impact of family risk for dyslexia on toddlers' consolidation of early phonological and lexical skills.

Infancy, Feb 22, 2020

Dyslexia', supervised by the third author. We thank Maria Cristou-Ergos, Scott O'Loughlin, and Ha... more Dyslexia', supervised by the third author. We thank Maria Cristou-Ergos, Scott O'Loughlin, and Hana Zjakic for their assistance with participant recruitment, data collection, and data analyses. We also thank all the infants and their parents for their valuable time and interest in this research.

Scientific Studies of Reading, Dec 8, 2020

Visual-verbal paired associate learning (PAL) is strongly related to reading acquisition, possibl... more Visual-verbal paired associate learning (PAL) is strongly related to reading acquisition, possibly indexing a distinct cross-modal mechanism for learning letter-sound associations. We measured linguistic abilities (nonword repetition, vocabulary size) longitudinally at 3.5 and 4.0 years, and visual-verbal PAL and letter knowledge at 4.0 and 4.5 years, in prereading children either at family risk for dyslexia (N=27) or not (N=25). Only nonword repetition predicted individual differences in later letter-sound knowledge, and PAL did not make a cross-sectional nor a longitudinal contribution. The data show a continuous relationship between linguistic processing abilities and letter-sound learning, with no independent role for PAL.

Children with dyslexia are known to show impairments in perceiving speech rhythm, which impact th... more Children with dyslexia are known to show impairments in perceiving speech rhythm, which impact their phonological development. Neural rhythmic speech studies have reported atypical delta phase in children with dyslexia, but beta band effects have not yet been studied. It is known that delta phase modulates the amplitude of the beta band response during rhythmic tasks via delta-beta phase-amplitude coupling (PAC). Accordingly, the atypical delta band effects reported for children with dyslexia may imply related atypical beta band effects. Here we analyse EEG data collected during a rhythmic speech paradigm from 51 children (21 typically-developing; 30 with dyslexia) who attended to a talking head repeating "ba" at 2Hz. Phase entrainment in the beta band, angular velocity in the beta band, power responses in the beta band and delta-beta PAC were assessed for each child and each group. Phase entrainment in the beta band was only significant for children without dyslexia. Chil...

Background: Computational models that successfully decode neural activity into speech are multipl... more Background: Computational models that successfully decode neural activity into speech are multiplying in the adult literature, with convolutional neural networks (CNNs), backward linear models, and mutual information (MI) models all being applied to neural data in relation to speech input. This is not the case in the infant literature. New Method: Three different computational models, two novel for infants, were applied to decode low-frequency speech envelope information. Previously-employed backward linear models were compared to novel CNN and MI-based models. Fifty infants provided EEG recordings when aged 4, 7, and 11 months, while listening passively to natural speech (sung or chanted nursery rhymes) presented by video with a female singer. Results: Each model computed speech information for these nursery rhymes in two different low-frequency bands, delta (1 – 4 Hz) and theta (4 – 8 Hz), thought to provide different types of linguistic information. All three models demonstrated ...

Annee Psychologique, 2018

In this comment, I argue that Kolinsky and Morais are correct to highlight the multiple research ... more In this comment, I argue that Kolinsky and Morais are correct to highlight the multiple research biases that arise from researchers' lack of awareness that they are wearing 'literate glasses'. Converging evidence can be amassed from developmental psychology and indeed, from the widespread use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Furthermore, cognitive neuroscience as currently practiced is busy repeating the mistakes made cognitive science. Accordingly, fundamental conclusions about how the brain represents information in research fields such as semantic memory, space, time and language may apply only to the educated and literate adult brain.

It is known that the rhythms of speech are visible on the face, accurately mirroring changes in t... more It is known that the rhythms of speech are visible on the face, accurately mirroring changes in the vocal tract. These low-frequency visual temporal movements are tightly correlated with speech output, and both visual speech (for example, mouth motion) and the acoustic speech amplitude envelope entrain neural oscillations. Low-frequency visual temporal information (‘visual prosody’) is known from behavioural studies to be perceived by infants, but oscillatory studies are currently lacking. Here we measure cortical tracking of low-frequency visual temporal information by five- and eight-month-old infants using a rhythmic speech paradigm (repetition of the syllable “ta” at 2 Hz). Eye-tracking data was collected simultaneously with EEG, enabling computation of cortical tracking and phase angle during visual-only speech presentation. Significantly higher power at the stimulus frequency indicated that cortical tracking occurred across both ages. Further, individual differences in preferr...