Haskins Publications

Number	1264
Year	2002
Drawer	24
Entry Date	12/20/2002
Authors	Best, C. T.
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Publication	Infant Behavior & Development, 25, 134-139.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL1264.pdf
Abstract	Discusses the paper by J. F. Werker and R. C. Tees which examined developmental decline in the ability to discriminate speech sounds according to phonetic category without prior specific language and/or linguistic experiences. The current author comments that the paper stands as a model of resear ch design, from its stimulus development, to its adaptation of testing procedures, to its inclusion of both cross-sectional and longitudinal data. More important, is the impact it has had on research and theory in early speech/language development. Its basic finding has become a widely-accepted developmental fact: the language environment dramatically affects infants' perception of non-native phonetic contrasts by sometime in the second half-year of life. These findings have led to a deeper understanding of the developmental pattern, and to the positing of several theoretical accounts in infant speech perception. Their report has played an instrumental role in the shift of infant speech research from the focus on inborn, universal phonetic abilities, to the emphasis on infants' dawning recognition of key properties of the ambient language which remains at the core of much contemporary investigation of the early ontogeny of language.
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