Phonological awareness abilities have been established as strong predictors of literacy development. One early developing skill involved in phonological awareness is rhyme detection, an ability that emerges around the age of 3 years. The neural processes underlying this skill have been assessed using event-related potentials (ERPs), revealing a pattern of response that is stable and adult-like in children as young as age 6 years. The current longitudinal study aimed to examine the development of these effects in children younger than previously assessed, from age 5 to 6 years. To do so, ERPs elicited by nonword rhyming and non-rhyming pairs were acquired in 12 children with typical development. Findings revealed an ERP pattern that was different than the adult response in both 5- and 6-year-olds, though 6-year-olds demonstrated a transition toward the more mature response. Additionally, verbal working memory abilities were found to be associated with more mature ERP responses. These results indicate that the neural processes supporting rhyme detection are not yet mature in 5-year-olds with significant maturation from age 5 to 6 years. These findings extend understanding of the typical trajectory of the neural responses supporting rhyme to children aged 5 years. In future studies, this trajectory could be used to determine whether rhyme processing is different or delayed among populations with communication or reading disorders, with the potential to inform diagnoses and treatments to improve rhyme and other early literacy skills.
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