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Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Do production patterns influence the processing of speech in prelinguistic infants?
Rory A DePaolis1, Marilyn M Vihman, Tamar Keren-Portnoy
1Communication Sciences and Disorders, James Madison University, MSC #4304, Harrisonburg, VA 22807, United States. depaolra@jmu.edu
Infant Behavior & Development
|July 22, 2011
Summary
Infants show preferences for speech sounds they can produce. As production skills grow, infants pay more attention to unfamiliar sounds, aiding word learning.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Speech Perception
- Language Acquisition
Background:
- Infant speech perception is crucial for language development.
- Understanding how infants process speech sounds informs theories of early word learning.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate infant speech sound preferences based on their production abilities.
- To determine if production patterns influence auditory attention to novel speech stimuli.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the headturn preference procedure with 18 infants.
- Presented auditory passages containing nonwords with consonants categorized by infant production frequency ('own', 'other', age-common).
Main Results:
- Infants with one 'own' consonant showed no preference between 'own' and 'other' passages.
- Infants with two 'own' consonants preferred 'other' passages over 'own' passages.
- Maternal speech patterns did not explain infant preferences.
Conclusions:
- Infant speech sound preferences are linked to their developing production capabilities.
- A shift in auditory attention towards less familiar sounds emerges with increased production experience.
- This production-based attentional shift supports the integration of production and perception in early word learning.
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