Musical pitch processing predicts reading development in Chinese school-age children

Musical pitch perception is closely related to phonological awareness and reading development in alphabetic languages. However, whether such a relation also exists in tonal languages such as Chinese remains unclear. Here, we examined the musical pitch—reading relations and the possible mediating effects of phonological awareness in a sample of typically-developing Chinese children followed from Grade 3 (age 9) to Grade 5 (age 11). Phonological awareness and reading (accuracy and fluency) were assessed at both time points. Musical pitch perception was examined with a passive oddball EEG paradigm and an active identification task at age 9. Results showed that neural musical pitch sensitivity (indexed by P3a latency) predicted reading accuracy at age 11 and its two-year development. Behavioral musical pitch sensitivity predicted reading fluency at both ages through the effects of phonological awareness. Together, our results reveal the effects of musical pitch processing on reading development at both behavioral and neural levels in Chinese.