The long road to automation: neurocognitive development of letter-speech sound processing.

In transparent alphabetic languages, the expected standard for complete acquisition of letter-speech sound associations is within one year of reading instruction. The neural mechanisms underlying the acquisition of letter-speech sound associations have, however, hardly been investigated. The present article describes an ERP study with beginner and advanced readers in which the influence of letters on speech sound processing is investigated by comparing the MMN to speech sounds presented in isolation with the MMN to speech sounds accompanied by letters.