We predicted that poor auditory–motor timing, reflected by poor beat synchronization, relates to less precise neural representation of temporal amplitude modulations in speech and inferior perception of language primitives that pave the way for reading development (i.e., phonological processing, short-term memory, and rapid naming).
Characterizing phonological skills in children before they begin explicit reading instruction offers insights into the preparative biology of reading. Here, we examined preschoolers’ ability to synchronize their drumming to that of an experimenter (using drumming rates that approximated phonemic rates), language skills, and neural encoding of temporal modulations within speech syllables. The preschool years constitute a sensitive period for phonological development, a time when experience with language and its internalization lay the foundation for reading acquisition ( 17). Converging lines of evidence indicate that children and adults who struggle to synchronize to a beat also struggle to read and have deficient neural encoding of sound ( 13– 16). Therefore, we posit that sensitivity to temporal modulations in speech influences the neural processing of discrete speech components and that a breakdown of the temporal encoding of speech segments may impede the development of phonological skills critical for language learning.īeat synchronization (a task necessitating precise integration of auditory perception and motor production) has offered an intriguing window into the biology of reading ability and its substrate skills. Furthermore, many reading-impaired children have pronounced problems with phonological awareness (i.e., the knowledge of which acoustic distinctions in speech are meaningful) that stem, at least in part, from deficient speech-sound processing ( 8– 12). Children and adults with dyslexia struggle to pick up on these rhythmic patterns ( 6), and this struggle may reflect a temporal encoding deficit underlying reading disabilities ( 5, 7).
Developmentally, speech rhythm is one of the earliest cues used by infants to segment speech and discern phonemes ( 3, 4), and parents naturally use emphatic stress and exaggerated rhythmic patterns to teach children language ( 5). Although we can characterize the perceptual and physiological deficits generally observed in reading-impaired individuals, each child is unique, challenging both diagnosis and intervention. Literacy skills are critical for school success, employment, and general well-being ( 1), but reading disorders plague a significant portion (5–10%) of the population ( 2).
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