Relationships between measures of phonological performance in preterm children

Infants are born with a predisposition to perceive and categorize basic linguistic sounds. Early in development, they can discriminate sounds from many languages and detect differences in rhythm and pattern. This sensitivity may begin before birth. Newborns exposed to two languages prenatally can recognize both, indicating that fetal language exposure influences later auditory discrimination.Recognition of Familiar SoundsBy five months, infants show preferences for familiar auditory stimuli,...

Hearing begins developing before birth. Fetuses respond to sounds in the womb through changes in brain activity, heart rate, and body movements, showing sensitivity to auditory stimulation. After birth, hearing continues to develop rapidly, supporting language learning and environmental awareness.Auditory Acuity and Sound LocalizationAuditory acuity refers to the ability to detect sounds. Newborns are especially responsive to human voices and can detect many speech sounds, although their...

Communication in infancy begins with crying, a reflexive and adaptive behavior that signals needs such as hunger, discomfort, or anger. Variations in pitch, pattern, and intensity help caregivers interpret these states, making crying an important survival mechanism during the neonatal period.Emergence of VocalizationsBy about six weeks, infants begin cooing, producing vowel-like sounds, squeals, and gurgles that often indicate contentment. Between six and ten months, cooing develops into...

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.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...

Language development in infancy progresses from understanding words to producing meaningful speech. Infants use contextual and social cues to connect sounds with meanings and gradually expand their vocabulary.Word Recognition Before SpeechInfants understand words before they can say them. By about six months, they may look toward a familiar object, such as a banana, when hearing its name. This receptive vocabulary provides a foundation for later speech.First Words and Linguistic SpeechMost...

Early language development begins with receptive vocabulary, the words children understand before they can speak. By about 18 months, many children understand roughly 150 words and produce about 50. Children with larger vocabularies and faster processing may recognize words from their initial sounds. For example, hearing “daw” may prompt identification of a dog, showing sensitivity to phonological cues.Growth of Expressive VocabularyExpressive vocabulary, or spoken vocabulary, develops...