Dyslexia: The great orchestral work that is speech

The brain collects first grammatical information about a word before it compiles information about its sound. 

Credit: Susanne Schauer 

What goes on inside our heads is similar to an orchestra.

For Peter Hagoort, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, this image is a very apt one for explaining how speech arises in the human brain.

"There are different orchestra members and different instruments, all playing in time with each other, and sounding perfect together."

When we speak, we transform our thoughts into a linear sequence of sounds. When we understand language, exactly the opposite occurs: we deduce an interpretation from the speech sounds we hear.

Closely connected regions of the brain – like the Broca's area and Wernicke's area – are involved in both processes, and these form the neurobiological basis of our capacity for language.

The 58-year-old scientist, who has had a strong interest in language and literature since his youth, has been searching for the neuro-biological foundations of our communication since the 1990s.

Using imaging processes, he observes the brain "in action" and tries to find out how this complex organ controls the way we speak and understand speech.

Making language visible Hagoort is one of the first researchers to combine psychological theories with neuroscientific methods in his efforts to understand this complex interaction.

Donders Centre

Because this is not possible without the very latest technology, in 1999, Hagoort established the Nijmegen-based Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging where an interdisciplinary team of researchers uses state-of-the-art technology; MRI and PET scanners, to find out how the brain succeeds in combining functions like memory, speech, observation, attention, feelings and consciousness.

Peter Hagoort

The Dutch scientist is particularly fascinated by the temporal sequence of speech.

He discovered, for example, that the brain begins by collecting grammatical information about a word before it compiles information about its sound.

This first reliable real-time measurement of speech production in the brain provided researchers with a basis for observing speakers in the act of speaking.

They were then able to obtain new insights about why the complex orchestral work of language is impaired; after strokes and in the case of cognitive disorders like dyslexia and autism.

"Language is an essential component of human culture, which distinguishes us from other species," says Hagoort.

"Young children understand language before they even start to speak. They master complex grammatical structures before they can add 3 and 13. Our brain is tuned for language at a very early stage," stresses Hagoort, referring to research findings.

The exact composition of the orchestra in our heads and the nature of the score on which the process of speech is based are topics which Hagoort continues to research.

Top Four English Phonetic (Phonemic) Charts

Phonetic transcription included in quality dictionaries is very helpful for people with reading difficulties, but what if you do not know the phonetic alphabet?

Shown below are four free interactive tools to use as a quick reference. The list is based on several evaluation points, including free use, interactivity, outlay and offline content.

The aim was to show phonemic charts as a reference only, and not to discuss lessons about IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).

1. Macmillan Phonetic Chart

This tool is provided by Macmillan Publishers and has been selected as one of the best phonetic charts online. The outlay is very simple and straightforward. After clicking on a symbol, the phoneme is articulated, followed by a full word in which the phoneme occurs.

The Macmillan Phonetic Chart is available as offline content, as a simple program that comes in two flavours. The first version displays the phonemes in a small window. The second, uses a full screen, which is ideal for presentation (realia) in a class.

Phonetic Chart by Macmillan

2. Phonemic Chart by British Council

The second option on our list is the Phonemic Chart by British Council. This simple software uses a clear outlay with nicely grouped and uncluttered vowels, consonants and diphthongs.

After clicking on a phonetic symbol, the sound of the phoneme is played. The written word used or word read after the phoneme (like in Macmilan’s Chart) are more natural than an isolated symbol.

This tool is well rated because of its simplicity and the fact that downloadable versions are available both for MS Windows and Mackintosh.

Chart by British Council

3. Sounds of English by BBC learn English

The third place is reserved for BBC English. The most basic of all in the list, this tool is can only be opened in a browser window and it is not available offline as a separate application.

The chart itself is simple with clearly articulated phonemes. There is good quality content available in the Pronunciation tips.

BBC is a very good provider, with great lessons on English pronunciation. Each of the sounds is explained in a separate lesson, accompanied by video content.

Chart by BBC Learn English

4. The Phonetic Chart by EFL Productions

Here the phonemes are presented within the words, and isolated phonemes cannot be heard. It is a good companion or supplement to previously mentioned charts, because it is possible to hear the phoneme in the context.

However, the content is only available online. You need to buy the full product if you wish to use it on your offline.

It would be good to mention that the software offers a simple pronunciation quiz and phonetic diagram (both available online). The downsides arethe somewhat strange voice recordings and the not-so-friendly design, which is uncomfortable to the eye.

Phonemes by EFL Productions

"Source: Languagebits.com"

Dutch home-based pre-reading intervention with children at familial risk of dyslexia

Dutch home-based pre-reading intervention with children at familial risk of dyslexia

A research team investigation of children (5 and 6 years old, n=30) at familial risk of dyslexia who received a home-based intervention that focused on phoneme awareness and letter knowledge in the year prior to formal reading instruction.

The children were compared to a no-training at-risk control group (n=27), which was selected a year earlier. After training, we found a small effect on a composite score of phoneme awareness (d=0.29) and a large effect on receptive letter knowledge (d=0.88).

In first grade, however, this did not result in beneficial effects for the experimental group in word reading and spelling. Results are compared to three former intervention studies in The Netherlands and comparable studies from Denmark and Australia.

Research Claims No link between dyslexia and lack of musical ability

No link between dyslexia and lack of musical ability

There is no link between a lack of musical ability and dyslexia. Moreover, attempts to treat dyslexia with music therapy are unwarranted, according to scientists in Belgium writing in the current issue of the International Journal of Arts and Technology.

Cognitive neuroscientist Jos- Morais of the Free University of Brussels and colleagues point out that research into dyslexia has pointed to a problem with how the brain processes sounds and how dyslexic readers manipulate the sounds from which words are composed, the phonemes, consciously and intentionally.

It was a relatively short step between the notion that dyslexia is an issue of phonological processing and how this might also be associated with poor musical skills - amusia - that has led to approaches to treating the condition using therapy to improve a dyslexic reader's musical skills.

Morais and colleagues demonstrate that theoretically this is an invalid argument and also present experimental evidence to show that there is no justification either for the link or for using music therapy to treat dyslexia.

Language and music are apparently uniquely human traits and many researchers have tried to find direct links between the two. A whole industry of music therapy hinges on this purported association with claims that language remediation is possible through the application of learning in music.

Given the social importance of literacy, a role for music in helping poor or dyslexic readers to overcome their difficulties has been at the forefront of therapy for many years. Morais' team points out that the notion is based on studies that are generally flawed in two respects.

The first problem with studies that attempt to link a lack of musical ability with reading difficulties is that the quality of published empirical studies is quite variable and many reviews of the field fail to discard papers containing insufficient information, either on materials and methods, or on the experimental results.

The second flaw is that many studies imply an explicit causality between amusia and dyslexia on the basis of results that are themselves merely statistical correlations.

Such an approach to science leads to a circular argument in which some researchers argue that music discrimination predicts phonological skills, which in turn predicts reading ability and that reading ability implies phonological skills and so on.

More recent studies have broken the link between hearing and reading by showing that deaf children, who often learn to perceive speech accurately using lip reading and visual clues can have literacy levels just as high as hearing children.

Of course, most of those children do not develop good musical ability with respect to musical pitch. Conversely, people who are unable even to hum a familiar tune show normal literacy levels.

Music and speech do overlap, but musical sounds and phonemes are not the same, the researchers explain. Musical tones are simply sounds, however, they are produced and can be heard without recourse to complex auditory analysis.

Phonemes, in contrast, whether spoken or read, are abstractions of the units into which language might be broken down. They are purely symbolic and require significantly more interpretation to understand than simply hearing a sound.