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Purpose:Rhyme increases the phonological similarity of phrases individuals hear and enhances recall from working memory. This study explores whether rhyme aids word learning and examines the underlying neural mechanisms through which rhyme facilitates word learning. Method:Fifty-seven adults completed a word learning task where they were exposed to 15 nonwords (NWs), four times each, in the sentence-final position as their electroencephalogram was recorded. Participants were randomly assigned to either a Rhyme or No-Rhyme group, where the NWs rhymed or did not rhyme with a prime real word in the sentence, respectively, during the exposure phase. Subjects were then tested on their recognition of the NWs. Results:Behavioral accuracy on the NW recognition task did not differ between the Rhyme and No-Rhyme groups; however, the Rhyme group showed an enhanced bilateral P2 in the early exposure phase, which has been linked to increased attention to the phonological and semantic features of speech. By contrast, the No-Rhyme group showed an attenuated N400 amplitude at left centroparietal sites in the later exposure phase, related to semantic retrieval of NWs. Conclusion:These findings indicate that rhyme may facilitate encoding of word meaning via attention to both phonology and semantic information; however, the absence of rhyme does not hinder adults' ability to map meaning to novel words. Supplemental Material:https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.29737478 

Decades of research has revealed a relationship between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and brain development at the structural and functional levels. Of particular note is the distinction between income and maternal education, two highly correlated factors which seem to influence brain development through distinct pathways. Specifically, while a families’ income-to-needs ratio is linked with physiological stress and household chaos, caregiver education influences the day-to-day language environment a child is exposed to. Variability in either one of these environmental experiences is related to subsequent brain development. While this work has the potential to inform public policies in a way that benefits children, it can also oversimplify complex factors, unjustly blame low-SES parents, and perpetuate a harmful deficit perspective. To counteract these shortcomings, researchers must consider sociodemographic differences in the broader cultural context that underlie SES-based differences in brain development. This review aims to address these issues by (a) identifying how sociodemographic mechanisms associated with SES influence the day-to-day experiences of children, in turn, impacting brain development, while (b) considering the broader cultural contexts that may differentially impact this relationship. 

Abstract Statistical learning (SL) is the ability to detect and learn regularities from input and is foundational to language acquisition. Despite the dominant role of SL as a theoretical construct for language development, there is a lack of direct evidence supporting the shared neural substrates underlying language processing and SL. It is also not clear whether the similarities, if any, are related to linguistic processing, or statistical regularities in general. The current study tests whether the brain regions involved in natural language processing are similarly recruited during auditory, linguistic SL. Twenty-two adults performed an auditory linguistic SL task, an auditory nonlinguistic SL task, and a passive story listening task as their neural activation was monitored. Within the language network, the left posterior temporal gyrus showed sensitivity to embedded speech regularities during auditory, linguistic SL, but not auditory, nonlinguistic SL. Using a multivoxel pattern similarity analysis, we uncovered similarities between the neural representation of auditory, linguistic SL, and language processing within the left posterior temporal gyrus. No other brain regions showed similarities between linguistic SL and language comprehension, suggesting that a shared neurocomputational process for auditory SL and natural language processing within the left posterior temporal gyrus is specific to linguistic stimuli. 

Building a robust vocabulary in grade school is essential for academic success. Children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) households on average perform below their higher SES peers on word learning tasks, negatively impacting their vocabulary; however, significant variability exists within this group. Many children from low SES homes perform as well as, or better than, their higher SES peers on measures of word learning. The current study addresses what processes underlie this variability, by comparing the neural oscillations of 44 better versus worse word learners (ages 8–15 years) from lower SES households as they infer the meaning of unknown words. Better word learners demonstrated increases in theta and beta power as a word was learned, whereas worse word learners exhibited decreases in alpha power. These group differences in neural oscillatory engagement during word learning indicate there may be different strategies employed based on differences in children’s skills. Notably, children with greater vocabulary knowledge are more likely to exhibit larger beta increases, a strategy that is associated with better word learning. This sheds new light on the mechanisms that support word learning in children from low SES households.