Vowels with extreme articulatory-acoustic properties act as natural referents. Infant perceptual asymmetries point to an underlying bias favoring these referent vowels. However, as language experience is gathered, distributional frequency of speech sounds could modify this initial bias. The perception of the /i/-/e/ contrast was explored in 144…

Normal, first-born children of two-parent, self-supporting families (N=60) were divided into three groups at birth: control, mothers receiving a specific language stimulation program, and both parents receiving the program simultaneously. Infants whose parents received simultaneous training exhibited the greatest gain over 4 1/2 months in Bayley…

Results suggest that the mother-infant-sibling interactive context differs in important ways from the mother-infant dyadic context. The mother-infant-sibling interactive context is a richer language learning environment than previously supposed. (GLR)

Study reports a technique for analyzing and categorizing certain gross features of the receptive language environment which constitute the primary source material for all of a baby's language learning. (Authors/MB)