Motor timing and precursor literacy skills in very young children

It is generally agreed that efficiency in processing basic speech sounds is a strong indicator of literacy outcomes. However, there is some debate about the extent to which this capacity is encapsulated within the language system. We report results based on pretest data obtained in an early music training study investigating the relationship between a motor-rhythmic measure of ability (synchronous tapping) and the purported purely linguistically based processing measures, Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) and Phonological Awareness (PA). Results suggest that RAN ability relies to some extent on nonlinguistic temporal processing skills.