Updates on becoming a native listener

Abstract

Infants’ sensitivity to the sound structure of the native language becomes finely honed during the first year. New studies confirm and extend this fact in the domains of phonetic, metrical, and grammatical processing. First, infants were tested on their ability to discriminate phonetic, but nonmeaningful differences in the native language. Although most 6- to 8-month olds discriminated [d] versus [t], 10- to 12-month olds did not. Thus, by 10–12 months, infants listen to only those phonetic differences that distinguish acceptable native-language syllabic shapes. Next, English-learning infants’ discrimination of single syllable words such as ‘‘clone’’ from their WS counterparts, e.g., ‘‘cologne’’ was examined. Testing infants from the newborn period through the first year of life revealed that this ability is not robustly evident until around 10 months. Finally, the authors asked whether infants are sensitive to the acoustic and phonological cues distinguishing content from function words. Using lists of content versus function words excised from infant-directed utterances, it was found that both neonates and 6-month olds distinguished these broad grammatical categories. These studies confirm and extend our understanding of initial biases and listening experiences on infant speech processing. A critical question the authors are now addressing is how these changes in speech perception prepare the child for language learning.