Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.
Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London, London, UK.
Dev Sci. 2021 Nov;24(6):e13124. doi: 10.1111/desc.13124. Epub 2021 Jun 1.
Visual information conveyed by a speaking face aids speech perception. In addition, children's ability to comprehend visual-only speech (speechreading ability) is related to phonological awareness and reading skills in both deaf and hearing children. We tested whether training speechreading would improve speechreading, phoneme blending, and reading ability in hearing children. Ninety-two hearing 4- to 5-year-old children were randomised into two groups: business-as-usual controls, and an intervention group, who completed three weeks of computerised speechreading training. The intervention group showed greater improvements in speechreading than the control group at post-test both immediately after training and 3 months later. This was the case for both trained and untrained words. There were no group effects on the phonological awareness or single-word reading tasks, although those with the lowest phoneme blending scores did show greater improvements in blending as a result of training. The improvement in speechreading in hearing children following brief training is encouraging. The results are also important in suggesting a hypothesis for future investigation: that a focus on visual speech information may contribute to phonological skills, not only in deaf children but also in hearing children who are at risk of reading difficulties. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBdpliGkbkY.
说话人脸所传达的视觉信息有助于言语感知。此外，无论是聋童还是听障儿童，其理解纯视觉言语（言语阅读能力）的能力都与语音意识和阅读技能有关。我们测试了通过训练言语阅读是否能提高听障儿童的言语阅读、音素混合和阅读能力。92 名 4 至 5 岁的听障儿童被随机分为两组：常规对照组和干预组，干预组完成了三周的计算机化言语阅读训练。与对照组相比，干预组在训练后立即和 3 个月后的后测中，在言语阅读方面的提高更为显著，无论是在训练过的单词还是未训练过的单词中都是如此。语音意识和单字阅读任务均无组间差异，但混合能力得分最低的儿童在经过训练后，混合能力确实有了更大的提高。在短暂的训练后，听障儿童的言语阅读能力有所提高，这令人鼓舞。这些结果还提出了一个未来研究的假设：关注视觉言语信息不仅可以促进聋童的语音技能，也可以促进有阅读困难风险的听障儿童的语音技能。本文的视频摘要可在 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBdpliGkbkY 观看。
