The present dissertation analyzed speech production and perception in early heritage Spanish-English bilingual children. Specifically, I investigated how perception and production of lexical stress develops in bilingual children. Current models of second language (L2) speech perception do not include heritage bilinguals or suprasegmental aspects…

This study investigated the phonological representations of vowels in children's native and non-native lexicons. Two experiments were mispronunciation tasks (i.e., a vowel in words was substituted by another vowel from the same language). These were carried out by Dutch-speaking 9-12-year-old children and Dutch-speaking adults, in their…

Purpose: In this study, the authors aimed to investigate how differences in language ability relate to differences in processing talker information in the native language and an unfamiliar language by comparing performance for different ages and for groups with impaired language. Method: Three groups of native English listeners with typical…

Speech sounds that contain multiple phonetic cues are often difficult for foreign-language learners, especially if certain cues are weighted differently in the foreign and native languages. Greek adult and child speakers of English were studied to determine the effect of native language on second-language (L2) cue weighting and, in particular, to…