A shift from language-general to language-specific sound discrimination abilities has been largely attested in different populations of infants during the second half of the first year of life; however, data are still scarce regarding bilingual populations. Previous research with 4-, 8- and 12-month-old Catalan-Spanish bilingual infants had…

During the first year of life, infants begin to have difficulties perceiving non-native vowel and consonant contrasts, thus adapting their perception to the phonetic categories of the target language. In this paper, we examine the perception of a non-segmental feature, i.e. stress. Previous research with adults has shown that speakers of French (a…

Used data from infants in operant head-turning procedure to examine effects of structure and redundancy of speech context on discovery of two target syllables. Clustering strategy, which presupposes basic element of perception and aggregates these elements to form units, may complement bracketing strategy, which presupposes endpoint cues and…

Five studies examined the contributions of syllable-ordering and rhythmic properties of syllable strings to 6- and 9-month-old infants' speech segmentation. Results indicate that the capacity for integrating multiple sources of information in speech perception emerges between 6 and 9 months, in rough synchrony with the emergence of integration in…

The discrimination of minimally paired speech sounds by seven severely retarded children (mean age 3.2 years, and mean IQ 38.4) was compared with the discrimination performance of eight normally developing 7-month-old infants. (Author/PHR)

Examined infants' tendency, from a few days to nine months of age, to prefer infant-directed over adult-directed speech. Results suggest that exaggerated pitch contours that characterize infant-directed speech may become salient communicative signals for infants through language-rich, interactive experiences with caretakers and increased…

The development of sensory and perceptual ability in infants is an important area of infancy research. This book reflects current knowledge of perceptual development and points to some of the many questions that remain unanswered. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1, "How the Visual System Develops: Normal and Abnormal…