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Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Behavioral Assessment of Hearing in 2 to 4 Year-old Children: A Two-interval, Observer-based Procedure Using Conditioned Play-based Responses
Published on: January 23, 2017
Age-related changes in sensitivity to native phonotactics in Japanese infants
Ryoko Mugitani1, Laurel Fais, Sachiyo Kajikawa
1NTT Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation, 2-4 Hikari-dai, Seika-cho, Souraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0237, Japan. mugitani@cslab.kecl.ntt.co.jp
Abstract:
Japanese infants at the ages of 6, 12, and 18 months were tested on their ability to discriminate three nonsense words with different phonotactic status: canonical keetsu, noncanonical but possible keets, and noncanonical and impossible keet. The results showed that 12 and 18 months olds discriminate the keets/keetsu pair, but infants in all age groups fail to discriminate the keets/keet pair. Taken together with the findings in our previous study [Kajikawa et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 120(4), 2278-2284 (2006)], these results suggest that Japanese infants develop the perceptual sensitivity for native phonotactics after 6 months of age, and that this sensitivity is limited to canonical patterns at this early developmental stage.
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