Turkish-speaking dyzygotic twins (n = 21) and singletons (n = 23) were tested through a standard articulation test to observe whether their consonant articulations were related to their vocabulary sizes, recorded through CDI forms, at age 3;0. Twins were observed to lag behind their singleton peers and performed below the norm level in their…

Before they even talk, infants become sensitive to the speech sounds of their native language and recognize the auditory form of an increasing number of words. Traditionally, these early perceptual changes are attributed to an emerging knowledge of linguistic categories such as phonemes or words. However, there is growing skepticism surrounding…

The in-out effect refers to the tendency that novel words whose consonants follow an inward-wandering pattern (e.g., P-T-K) are rated more positively than stimuli whose consonants follow an outward-wandering pattern (e.g., K-T-P). While this effect appears to be reliable, it is not yet clear to what extent it generalizes to existing words in a…

Child-directed speech has long been known to influence children's vocabulary learning. However, while we know that caregiver utterances differ from those directed at adults in various ways, little is known about any differences in the lexical properties of child-directed and adult-directed utterances. We compare over half a million word tokens…

Multisyllabic words constitute a large portion of children's vocabulary. However, the relationship between phonological neighborhood density and English multisyllabic word learning is poorly understood. We examine this link in three, four and six year old children using a corpus-based approach. While we were able to replicate the well-accepted…

Background: Despite the ability of cochlear implants (CIs) to provide children with access to speech, there is considerable variability in spoken language outcomes. Research aimed at identifying factors influencing speech production accuracy is needed. Aims: To characterize the consonant production accuracy of children with cochlear implants…

The study investigates the relationship between lexical encoding and production in order to establish whether learners are able to produce a difficult contrast in words that they merged in their mental lexicon. Forty American English learners of Russian were tested on their production and lexical encoding of familiar and highly-frequent words with…

Current theories of phonological development make contrasting predictions about the role of vocabulary growth and orthographic knowledge in the emergence of segmental phonological representations. Testing these predictions in children is made difficult by the metacognitive nature of tasks used to assess phonological representations. In this study,…

Word segmentation is a crucial step in children's vocabulary learning. While computational models of word segmentation can capture infants' performance in small-scale artificial tasks, the examination of early word segmentation in naturalistic settings has been limited by the lack of measures that can relate models' performance to developmental…

We examined full-term and preterm infants' perception of frequent and infrequent phonotactic pairings involving sibilants and liquids. Infants were tested on their preference for syllables with onsets involving /s/ or /?/ followed by /l/ or /r/ using the Headturn Preference Procedure. Full-term infants preferred the frequent to the infrequent…

This study aimed to adapt and validate the Word Complexity Measure (WCM) for Persian-speaking toddlers. The WCM is a tool for assessing phonological complexity, originally proposed by Stoel-Gammon. The study was conducted in two phases: (1) adapting the WCM parameters to the Persian language and (2) conducting a validation study with 60…

The Mayan language Mam uses complex predicates to express events. Complex predicates map multiple semantic elements onto a single word, and consequently have a blend of lexical and phrasal features. The chameleon-like nature of complex predicates provides a window on children's ability to express phrasal combinations at the one-word stage of…

Second language (L2) speakers often experience difficulties in learning words with L2-specific phonemes due to the unfaithful lexical encoding predicted by the fuzzy lexical representations hypothesis. Currently, there is limited understanding of how allophonic variation in the first language (L1) influences L2 phonological and lexical encoding.…

This study examined the impact of two different interventions: Phonological Awareness PA-only versus PA, vocabulary, and Morphological Awareness (MA) on Spanish-speaking kindergarteners' language and literacy skills. We took measures on PA, vocabulary, letter-name and sound knowledge, and MA. Children in the comprehensive intervention condition…

After a universal screening assessment, how can K-6 educators translate the results into evidence-based instruction, targeted interventions, and improved reading outcomes? The timely new edition of this bestselling book has clear and practical answers. Fully updated with the latest reading research and models, this teacher-friendly planning guide…