Abstract
Individual differences in infants' native phonological development have been linked to the quantity and quality of infant-directed speech (IDS). The effects of parental and infant bilingualism on this relation in 131 five- and nine-month-old monolingual and bilingual Spanish and Basque infants (72male; 59 female; from white middle-class background) were investigated. Bilingualism did not affect the developmental trajectory of infants' native and non-native speech perception and the quality of maternal speech. In both language groups, vowel exaggeration in IDS was significantly related to speech perception skills for 9-month-olds (r=-.30), but not for 5-month-olds. This demonstrates that bilingual and monolingual caregivers provide their infants with speech input that assists their task of learning the phonological inventory of one or two languages.
Submitted Version (
Free)
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call