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Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
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Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
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Flexibility in Bilingual Infants' Word Learning.

Katharine Graf Estes1, Jessica F Hay2

  • 1University of California, Davis.

Child Development
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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Bilingual infants show prolonged flexibility in learning word sounds, unlike monolinguals. This developmental narrowing for word interpretation is extended in bilinguals exposed to varied language input.

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Infants undergo developmental narrowing for sound interpretation as they specialize in their native language.
  • Bilingual infants face complex language input, potentially altering specialization trajectories.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how bilingual infants' sound interpretation for word learning develops.
  • To determine if bilingualism influences the timing of developmental narrowing for phonemic contrasts.

Main Methods:

  • Experiment 1: Bilingual 14- and 19-month-olds learned object labels with pitch contour differences.
  • Experiment 2: Bilingual 22-month-olds attempted to learn similar labels.
  • Comparison with established monolingual developmental trajectories.

Main Results:

  • Bilingual infants aged 14-19 months successfully learned labels distinguished by pitch contour.
  • Bilingual infants aged 22 months failed to learn these pitch contour distinctions.
  • Bilingual infants demonstrated a later onset of developmental narrowing compared to monolinguals.

Conclusions:

  • Bilingual infants maintain a longer period of phonetic flexibility for word learning.
  • Exposure to varied linguistic input in bilingualism may delay the specialization process.
  • Findings challenge existing models of developmental narrowing in language acquisition.