This is a final report of research in dichotic listening performance (DLP). The purposes for the research were to study the development of DLP in children and adults, to examine DLP as a function of verbal information presented in a task, to determine the contribution of perceptual and mnemonic factors affecting DLP by controlling order-of-report patterns, to examine the relationship between DLP and a child's reading status, and to explore the utility of alternative measures or expressions of DLP. Data were collected in three experiments: normal subjects with free order of report; reading-disabled and normal subjects (controls) with free order of report; and reading-disabled (dyslexic) and normal subjects with controlled order of report. In a summary of the experimental data, the report concludes that a dichotic right-ear advantage (REA) is readily obtainable in reading normal children as young as five years of age and is likely to be greater for sentences, confirming the experimental hypothesis that syntactically organized material taps the lateralized language-processing mechanism more effectively than do isolated word units. Findings also provide arguments for replacing free order with controlled order of report procedures in dichotic experiments and for using the absence of REA either for digit materials or for sentence materials as a diagnostic indicator of language impairment. (RL)