Speech acquisition
Speech acquisition or early language acquisition focuses on the development of spoken language by a child. While grammatical and syntactic learning can be seen as a part of language acquisition, speech acquisition focuses on the development of speech perception and speech production over the first years of a child's lifetime.
Development of speech perception
Sensory learning concerning acoustic speech signals already starts during pregnancy. The newborn is already capable of discerning many phonetic contrasts. This capability may be innate. Speech perception becomes language-specific for vowels at around 6 months, for sound combinations at around 9 months and for language-specific consonants at around 11 months.[1]
It is also important that a newborn is already capable of detecting typical word stress patterns around the age of 8 months.
See also
- Auditory processing disorder
- Developmental verbal dyspraxia
- Infantile speech
- Origin of speech
- Speech and language pathology
- Speech processing
- Speech repetition
References
- ↑ Kuhl PK (November 2004). "Early language acquisition: cracking the speech code". Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 5 (11): 831–43. doi:10.1038/nrn1533. PMID 15496861.
Further reading
- Friederici AD, Oberecker R, Brauer J (March 2012). "Neurophysiological preconditions of syntax acquisition". Psychol Res. 76 (2): 204–11. doi:10.1007/s00426-011-0357-0. PMID 21706312.
- Guenther FH (July 1995). "Speech sound acquisition, coarticulation, and rate effects in a neural network model of speech production". Psychol Rev. 102 (3): 594–621. PMID 7624456.
- Perani D, Saccuman MC, Scifo P, et al. (September 2011). "Neural language networks at birth". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 108 (38): 16056–61. doi:10.1073/pnas.1102991108. PMC 3179044
. PMID 21896765. - Smith A (2006). "Speech motor development: Integrating muscles, movements, and linguistic units". J Commun Disord. 39 (5): 331–49. doi:10.1016/j.jcomdis.2006.06.017. PMID 16934286.
- Wilson EM, Green JR, Yunusova Y, Moore CA (November 2008). "Task specificity in early oral motor development". Semin Speech Lang. 29 (4): 257–66. doi:10.1055/s-0028-1103389. PMC 2737457. PMID 19058112.