低年級閱讀困難兒童輔音知覺及其與閱讀發展的關聯

Assessing Consonant Perception Ability and Its Association with Reading Development in School-Aged Children with Reading Difficulty

國外的閱讀困難研究顯示，低年級閱讀困難（閱困）兒童是否出現語音知覺缺陷，尚未有定論。此外，若這群兒童出現語音知覺的缺損，其本質為一般的聽覺處理或特定於語音的缺損，也有爭議。因此，本研究的主要目的在於檢視語音知覺，特別是輔音知覺，是否和華語閱讀困難兒童的表現有關？本研究比較國小二到三年級閱讀困難兒童（n = 20），與年齡和非語文智商配對的對照組兒童（n = 20）的輔音知覺表現是否呈現缺損。並操弄背景調幅噪音的頻率以檢視聽覺效能的「遮蔽解除效益」，以釐清是否閱讀困難兒童的聽覺處理能力有限，以致降低輔音知覺表現。結果顯示，和對照組相比，閱困兒童的輔音指認正確率顯著較低。輔音辨識的噪音遮蔽解除效益，也就是隨噪音的調幅頻率下降而提高輔音指認正確率的趨勢，未受組別的影響，此表示閱困兒童的聽覺處理能力和正常發展兒童相似。此外，合併兩組兒童資料所進行的相關及逐步多元迴歸分析結果顯示，輔音知覺和認字、閱讀理解，以及聲韻覺識有關。整體而言，研究結果呈現華語閱讀困難兒童的輔音知覺處理限制，而且這樣的限制並非聽覺處理缺損的後續效應。此外，低年級兒童的語音知覺和整體閱讀表現及其先備能力有緊密關係。

Previous studies have shown controversial results regarding whether lower graders with reading difficulty would encounter problems in speech perception. Furthermore, if these children had shown deficits in speech perception, no consistent conclusion was reached about whether the deficits resulted from general auditory processing or specific impairment in speech perception. The present study focused on Mandarin-speaking children with reading difficulty and aimed at investigating the correlation between their reading ability and speech perception, especially consonant perception. Eight to nine year-old children with reading difficulty (RD) (n = 20) were recruited along with a control group consisting of age and non-verbal IQ matched children (n = 20). These participants were tested with a consonant identification task. Through manipulating the modulation frequency of amplitude modulated (AM) noise in the background, the study attempted to look into the “release from masking” effect. The effect was later utilized to see whether limited general auditory processing would lead to the poor performance in consonant perception. The results showed that children with RD performed less accurately in identifying consonants than the matched-group children. The “release from masking” effect, that is, the decrease of modulated frequency in AM noise enhancing the percent corrects of identifying consonants, was not affected by group difference. The results suggest that the auditory processing ability of children with RD is similar to that of normal reading children. In addition, correlation and regression analyses both demonstrated a strong association between speech perception performance and reading ability. In conclusion, the results showed the consonant perception deficit in Mandarin-spea king children with RD; also, for the lower graders, there was a close relationship between speech perception and overall reading performance.