Neurophysiological markers of early language acquisition: from syllables to sentences

Recently, there have been several reports of the neurophysiological correlates of language acquisition. These indicate that the infant's brain is able to discriminate different phonemes within the first 2 months of life, that knowledge about stress patterns and phonotactic rules is established between 5-12 months, and that phonotactic knowledge begins to interact with lexical-semantic processes between 12-14 months. Electrophysiological markers for lexical-semantic processes indicate that semantic processing of words in picture contexts is present at 14 months and for words in sentential contexts around 30 months. At 32 months, children demonstrate an adult-like electrophysiological response pattern to syntactic violations. The similarities between the brain response patterns observed in children and adults support the view that language develops in a continuous manner.