This review describes a computational approach for modeling the development of speech motor control in infants. We address the development of two levels of control: articulation of individual speech sounds (defined here as phonemes, syllables, or words for which there is an optimized motor program) and production of sound sequences such as phrases…

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…

At the babbling stage, the syllable does not have the temporal characteristics of adult syllables because of the infant's limited oro-motor skills. This research aims to further our knowledge of syllable duration and temporal variability and their evolution with age as an indicator of the development of articulatory skills. The possible impact of…

It is widely agreed that learning to read starts with the establishment of letter-to-phoneme correspondences. However, it is also widely agreed that prereaders do not have access to phoneme units. Here we show that the building of associations between letters and syllables, which we call the "syllabic bridge", might be a faster and more…

To communicate, children must discriminate and identify speech sounds. Because visual speech plays an important role in this process, we explored how visual speech influences phoneme discrimination and identification by children. Critical items had intact visual speech (e.g. baez) coupled to non-intact (excised onsets) auditory speech (signified…

Young children's first attempts at CVC words are often realized with the final consonant being heavily aspirated or followed by an epenthetic vowel (e.g. "cat"/kaet/ realized as [kaet[superscript h]] or [kaet[superscript ?]]). This has led some to propose that young children represent word-final (coda) consonants as an onset-nucleus…

This study investigated whether and to what extent phonemic abilities of young readers (Grade 5) influence syllabic effects in reading. More precisely, the syllable congruency effect was tested in the lexical decision task combined with masked priming in eleven-year-old children. Target words were preceded by a pseudo-word prime sharing the first…

The present investigation examines three hypotheses concerning the development of temporal coordination of consonant clusters in the speech of children at four age levels. Results reveal that five and seven-year-olds can be separated from older children and adults on the basis of absolute duration of consonants. (CHK)

A preliminary study dealt with the ways in which children between six and seven years of age organize spoken language, specifically aspects of the temporal and segmental structure of polysyllabic English words containing the syllable C/jul/ (e.g., pediculous). (Author/SW)

Reports on the phonological form of one child's productive vocabulary from age 0;10 to 1;8 with primary focus on his production of multisyllabic targets. Findings indicate that there is a developmental and perhaps maturational limitation in the capacity to carry out the processes underlying word and sentence production. (33 references) (Author/CK)

Phonological awareness is thought to become increasingly analytic during early childhood. This study examines whether the proposed developmental sequence (syllable[right arrow]onset-rime[right arrow]phoneme) varies according to the characteristics of a child's native language. Experiment 1 compares the phonological segmentation skills of English…

When Israeli four- to six-year-olds (N=120) wrote pairs of nouns sharing a syllable and sentences sharing either mainly nouns or mainly verbs, analysis indicated that the older the children, the more their invented writing reflected common linguistic elements and length of utterance. Nouns were represented in children's written productions earlier…