Identification of Prelinguistic Phonological Categories

Purpose: The prelinguistic infant's babbling repertoire of "syllables"--the phonological categories that form the basis for early word learning--is noticed by caregivers who interact with infants around them. Prior research on babbling has not explored the caregiver's role in rec...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of speech, language, and hearing research language, and hearing research, 2012-12, Vol.55 (6), p.1626-1639
Main Authors: Ramsdell, Heather L, Oller, D. Kimbrough, Buder, Eugene H, Ethington, Corinna A, Chorna, Lesya
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Babies
Caregivers
Child Caregivers
Child Language
Female
Grammar, Comparative and general
Humans
Identification
Infant
Infants
Language
Language Acquisition
Language Development
Listening
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Phonetic Transcription
Phonetics
Phonology
Services
Social Behavior
Speech
Speech Acoustics
Syllables
Verbal Behavior
Verbal Learning
Voice
Young Children
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Summary:Purpose: The prelinguistic infant's babbling repertoire of "syllables"--the phonological categories that form the basis for early word learning--is noticed by caregivers who interact with infants around them. Prior research on babbling has not explored the caregiver's role in recognition of early vocal categories as foundations for word learning. In the present work, the authors begin to address this gap. Method: The authors explored vocalizations produced by 8 infants at 3 ages (8, 10, and 12 months) in studies illustrating identification of phonological categories through caregiver report, laboratory procedures simulating the caregiver's natural mode of listening, and the more traditional laboratory approach (phonetic transcription). Results: Caregivers reported small repertoires of syllables for their infants. Repertoires of similar size and phonetic content were discerned in the laboratory by judges who simulated the caregiver's natural mode of listening. However, phonetic transcription with repeated listening to infant recordings yielded repertoire sizes that vastly exceeded those reported by caregivers and naturalistic listeners. Conclusions: The results suggest that caregiver report and naturalistic listening by laboratory staff can provide a new way to explore key characteristics of early infant vocal categories, a way that may provide insight into later speech and language development.
ISSN:1092-4388
1558-9102
DOI:10.1044/1092-4388(2012/11-0250)