Early Phonetic and Lexical Development

Abstract

Researchers frequently examine the development of the single-word lexicon in the absence of phonetic data. Yet a large body of literature demonstrates relationships between the phonetics of babble and early speech, and it is clear that production skill is essential for establishing a lexicon. This study uses longitudinal productivity criteria to establish children's phonetic skill. Twenty children were followed from age 9 to 16 months, and their level of consistency of vocal patterns was examined in relation to their lexical production, providing a relatively large-sample demonstration of phonetic/lexical relationships at the transition to language. Number of specific consonants produced consistently across the months of observation predicted referential lexical use at 16 months, whereas the transition to reference itself signaled the onset of a sharp increase in numbers of different words produced in a session. The earliest referential speakers exhibited prior consistency in the production of [p/b], which also predominated in their words. Prior use of at least two supraglottal consonants characterized the referential group. Children varied in the specific consonants they produced consistently, and these same consonants, varying according to individual child repertoire, characterized nearly all consonant-based words produced by each child in both of the final 2 months of observation. These findings are interpreted in relation to the children's contemporaneous development of representational ability and pragmatic skill.

Do production patterns influence the processing of speech in prelinguistic infants?

“…This is consistent with or higher than what has been reported for other large-sample studies of transcription reliability for consonants produced by prelinguistic infants (Davis & MacNeilage, 1995;McCune & Vihman, 2001). It might be expected, given the quality of the video and audio signal, that reliability would be higher than previously reported in the literature, but the nature of the study required rapid transcription to identify acquisition of VMS in as timely a way as possible.…”

“…Two separate criteria were used to define the acquisition of a VMS. The first criterion, following McCune & Vihman (2001), was that a consonant be produced at least 10 times in each of three sessions, with no more than one session intervening with fewer than 10 occurrences. Second, since this study required a more dynamic approach to identifying VMS to permit timely perceptual testing, 50 occurrences of a consonant within one to three sessions was also accepted as evidence of a VMS.…”

“…McCune and Vihman (2001) tracked the emergence of frequently used consonants (Ôvocal motor schemesÕ: VMS), on the assumption that repeated practice with a particular phonetic form might lessen the processing load of recognizing or categorizing sound sequences (or word forms) that contain such a consonant, freeing up processing resources for the pairing of form and meaning. This would facilitate the learning of referential words.…”

The sources of phonological knowledge: a cross-linguistic perspective

“…Explicit learning is facilitated when the child has developed a repertoire of phonological representations, as we noted earlier (McCune & Vihman, 2001;Storkel, 2001;Keren-Portnoy et al, 2005; cf. also Werker et al, 2002, who found a difference in the ability to notice a minimal phonological shift in nonsense word labels for novel objects as early as 14 months only in the case of children with a reported production vocabulary of over 25 words).…”

“…The beginnings of explicit word learning are accompanied by evidence of a "desire to know", as the child insistently points at different objects, for example, alternating pointing with turning to look at the adult interlocutor. The product of such learning is EXPLICIT LEXICAL RETRIEVAL, leading to spontaneous word use outside of a priming context (typically seen between the 4wp and the 25wp; this is "context-flexible" word use: McCune & Vihman, 2001). Figure 4 illustrates this advance in word learning, which underlies further advances in phonological knowledge.…”