Baby steps to learning language.

Abstract

Young infants show remarkable speech perception sensitivities, and during the first year of life narrow these initial capabilities to reflect enhanced sensitivity to the sounds and structures used in their native language. This article reviews critical research illustrating how infants tune their perceptual sensitivities during the first year of life and how the language-specific changes in perception help "bootstrap" them into language. Specific discussion centers on recent research from our lab showing a link between the advances in speech perception and subsequent word learning in both normally developing and clinical populations, including research on the impact of early nutrition. The article ends with suggestions for new ways in which the milestones in speech and language processing seen in infancy can serve to help assess the role of early nutrition on subsequent development.