title: Revisiting the "enigma" of musicians with dyslexia: Auditory sequencing and speech abilities.
abstract: Previous research has suggested a link between musical training and auditory processing skills. Musicians have shown enhanced perception of auditory features critical to both music and speech, suggesting that this link extends beyond basic auditory processing. It remains unclear to what extent musicians who also have dyslexia show these specialized abilities, considering often-observed persistent deficits that coincide with reading impairments. The present study evaluated auditory sequencing and speech discrimination in 52 adults comprised of musicians with dyslexia, nonmusicians with dyslexia, and typical musicians. An auditory sequencing task measuring perceptual acuity for tone sequences of increasing length was administered. Furthermore, subjects were asked to discriminate synthesized syllable continua varying in acoustic components of speech necessary for intraphonemic discrimination, which included spectral (formant frequency) and temporal (voice onset time [VOT] and amplitude envelope) features. Results indicate that musicians with dyslexia did not significantly differ from typical musicians and performed better than nonmusicians with dyslexia for auditory sequencing as well as discrimination of spectral and VOT cues within syllable continua. However, typical musicians demonstrated superior performance relative to both groups with dyslexia for discrimination of syllables varying in amplitude information. These findings suggest a distinct profile of speech processing abilities in musicians with dyslexia, with specific weaknesses in discerning amplitude cues within speech. Because these difficulties seem to remain persistent in adults with dyslexia despite musical training, this study only partly supports the potential for musical training to enhance the auditory processing skills known to be crucial for literacy in individuals with dyslexia. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Developmental Medicine Center, Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Boston Children's Hospital.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zuk
authors.affiliation: International Music Education Research Centre, Institute of Education, University College London.
authors.forename: Paula
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bishop-Liebler
authors.affiliation: Developmental Medicine Center, Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Boston Children's Hospital.
authors.forename: Ola
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ozernov-Palchik
authors.affiliation: Institute of Music in Human and Social Development, Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh.
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.affiliation: Institute of Music in Human and Social Development, Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh.
authors.forename: Katie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Overy
authors.affiliation: International Music Education Research Centre, Institute of Education, University College London.
authors.forename: Graham
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Welch
authors.affiliation: Developmental Medicine Center, Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Boston Children's Hospital.
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gaab
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003463:Cues; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D010700:Phonetics; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D012691:Serial Learning; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013060:Speech; D013067:Speech Perception; D013998:Time Perception; D055815:Young Adult