47

3
Language Processing and
Production in Infants and Toddlers
Barbara T. Conboy
Humans begin learning the patterns of their native language from their frst breaths of
life. Gradual attunement to native language features and conceptual development over the
frst year culminate in infants producing their frst words, a milestone eagerly anticipated
and celebrated by caregivers. Remarkable development in other aspects of language also
occurs over the frst few years, paving the way for the production and comprehension of
longer units of language that allow young children to efectively communicate complex
concepts with members of their communities. In most cases, language development occurs
in a seemingly efortless manner whether a child is learning one or two native languages.
Yet the language development of a small percentage of infants and toddlers lags behind that
of their peers. Professionals interested in identifying language-learning disorders at an early
age need to understand the range of behaviors considered typical of infants and toddlers.
Innovative techniques developed over the past few decades have facilitated such an under-
standing by allowing researchers to probe language perception, production, and processing
at various points in development. Tis chapter summarizes what has been discovered from
research, focusing on the frst 3 years.
Studies of groups of infants and toddlers acquiring more than one language have
been scarce until recently. Given that most research has been with hearing infants, this
chapter deals with the acquisition of spoken language and focuses on data from English
Spanish bilingual learners whenever possible; however, it also includes relevant research on
bilingual infants and toddlers from other language communities and monolingual learn-
ers. Together, the fndings of studies reviewed in this chapter suggest that the adaptable
young brain develops ways of processing and producing language that are similar, but not
identical, across monolingual and bilingual learning situations. General abilities present at
birth allow infants to learn from whatever input is provided, and the learning process itself
shapes the mechanisms that are used for further learning. Te implications of such fndings
for the early identifcation and clinical management of bilingual infants and toddlers at risk
for language-learning disorders are discussed.
48 Conboy
THE PRENATAL AND EARLY POSTNATAL PERIODS:
BASIC MECHANISMS OF LANGUAGE LEARNING
Much of the basic sensory, perceptual, and cognitive machinery involved in processing
spoken language is developed by the third trimester of gestation. Certain properties of
speech, such as the fundamental frequency of a persons voice and speech prosody (i.e., into-
nation contours and stress patterns involving alternations in loudness and the durations of
speech sounds), are detected by fetuses by 30 weeks gestational age and stored in memory
(for a review, see Moon & Fifer, 2000). For example, fetal heart rates respond diferently
to the native (i.e., maternal) language versus a nonnative language and to the maternal
voice versus an unfamiliar female voice (Kisilevsky et al., 2009). Afer expectant mothers
read aloud a nursery rhyme once each day during the last 4 weeks of their pregnancies,
their fetuses heart rates responded diferently when presented with an unfamiliar female
voice reading that same passage versus an unfamiliar passage (DeCasper, Lecanuet, Busnel,
Granier-Deferre, & Maugeais, 1994). Te possibility that late-term fetal brains encode
characteristics of speech and retain this information from the pre- to postnatal period is
supported by research with newborn infants using techniques such as high-amplitude suck-
ing (HAS), in which rates of nonnutritive sucks are compared as infants listen to diferent
stimuli. Newborns show diferent sucking responses to their mothers voices than to unfa-
miliar female voices (DeCasper & Fifer, 1980), to their native language than to a nonnative
language (Byers-Heinlein, Burns, & Werker, 2010; Mehler et al., 1988; Moon, Cooper, &
Fifer, 1993), and to a story read by their mothers during the last 6 weeks of pregnancy
than to a novel story (DeCasper & Spence, 1986). Research conducted with preterm infants
shortly afer birth has also suggested that the neural mechanisms used for perceiving and
forming memory traces of the acoustic properties of speech are available by 3035 weeks
conceptual age (Cheour et al., 1998). Fetuses may not hear all of the acoustic information in
speech due to attenuation of higher frequency sounds in utero (see Moon & Fifer, 2000);
however, the research suggests that they can process such information once exposed to it
afer birth.
Whether or not language learning begins in utero, it is clear that hearing infants begin
life equipped to perceive fne-grained distinctions between speech sounds, an ability they
will need for learning the forms of words. In a classic study in which HAS was used to test
speech sound discrimination in 1- to 4-month-old monolingual English infants, changes in
sucking rates were recorded when the stimulus sound changed to /ba/ from /pa/, indicating
discrimination of these sounds (Eimas, Siqueland, Jusczyk, & Vigorito, 1971). Tese results
were initially interpreted as evidence that the ability to perceive speech sounds is innate.
However, subsequent work has shown that such early speech sound discrimination abilities
are not unique to humans and are not aligned with the phoneme categories of particu-
lar languages, thus they likely derive from broad, innate auditory-perceptual abilities (for
reviews, see Gervain & Mehler, 2010; Kuhl, 2004; see also the next section for an extensive
discussion). Newborn infants prefer listening to speech over nonspeech sounds that have
similar acoustic properties (Vouloumanos & Werker, 2007). Infants surrounded by English,
Spanish, or any other language initially possess the same basic abilities to perceive speech
sounds, but then they tune their perception based on their input. Moreover, though it
was long believed that early exposure to diferent languages afected only perception, not
Language Processing and Production 49
production, Mampe, Friederici, Christophe, and Wermke (2009) found that the cries
of newborn infants correspond to the prosody of the maternal language. Infants whose
mothers spoke French produced cries with primarily rising melody contours, and infants
whose mothers spoke German produced cries with falling contours. Tus, some form of
perceptionproduction matching ability appears to be available at birth.
In addition to basic auditory-perceptual, memory, and imitative abilities; an inter-
est in speech sounds; and sensitivity to the prosody of speech, infants start life with gen-
eral computational abilities that may be used for detecting regularities in language (see
Gervain & Mehler, 2010). One such ability, called statistical learning, allows infants to track
the transitional probabilities of co-occurring elements in sequenced patterns, for exam-
ple, the probability that a particular phoneme or syllable will follow another phoneme or
syllable (Safran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996). Teinonen, Fellman, Ntnen, Alku, and
Huotilainen (2009) tested the statistical learning of newborn infants using event-related
potentials (ERPs), an electrophysiological technique that noninvasively measures the brain
activity involved in sensory, perceptual, and cognitive processing and can be used with
very young infants during awake or sleep states (for a review, see Friederici, 2005). In ERP
research, electrodes placed on the scalp record activity produced by neurons in the cerebral
cortex in response to particular stimuli, and epochs of this activity for each stimulus are
averaged together, producing waveforms that can be analyzed with respect to their tim-
ing, voltage amplitude, and distribution across the scalp. Teinonen et al. (2009) presented
sleeping newborn infants with trisyllabic pseudowords played in a random order so that
the probability that the last syllable of one pseudoword would be followed by the frst syl-
lable of a diferent pseudoword was always much lower than the within-word transitional
probabilities of syllables. Infants ERPs were larger in amplitude to the frst syllable of each
pseudoword compared to the medial and fnal syllables, indicating that the newborn brain
is sensitive to transitional probabilities that identify word onsets. However, there is no evi-
dence that infants use transitional probabilities to recognize words in speech until later in
infancy (Safran, 2001). Statistical learning has been documented for visual as well as audi-
tory patterns (Kirkham, Slemmer, & Johnson, 2002) and in nonhuman animals (e.g., Toro &
Trobalon, 2005), indicating it is a domain-general ability that can be used for various
aspects of learning.
Although statistical learning is a powerful mechanism for identifying specifc
sequences of stimuli such as speech sounds within words, some aspects of language acqui-
sition may require more abstract rule-like knowledge about how particular classes of ele-
ments can be sequenced. It has been proposed that newborns possess an auditory primitive
intelligence, which allows them to detect acoustic regularities and generate abstract rules
to predict future auditory events (Carral et al., 2005). Carral and colleagues (2005) tested
sleeping newborn infants using an ERP paradigm in which pairs of tones with ascend-
ing frequency (i.e., the second tone had a higher frequency than the frst) occurred most
of the time (the standard pattern) and pairs with descending frequency occurred rarely
(the deviant pattern); the use of various tone pairs required infants to discriminate the
patterns by forming an abstract rule rather than relying on absolute frequencies. Diferent
ERP amplitudes for the deviant compared to the standard pairs indicated that newborn
infants represent abstract rules. Other evidence that newborns can learn rules comes from
a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study in which infants were tested on the
50 Conboy
ability to learn simple repetition-based structures (i.e., syllable sequences such as /mubaba/)
that conform to a pattern (Gervain, Macagno, Cogoi, Pea, & Mehler, 2008). Gervain and
colleagues (2008) found increased neural activity (i.e., changes in oxygentated/deoxygen-
tated blood hemoglobin concentrations) in response to syllable sequences that conformed
to the learned pattern compared to a novel pattern. Tese fndings do not necessarily show
that newborns form abstract linguistic rules (i.e., phonotactics, morphosyntax), but they do
suggest that rule-learning abilities are present and available for use from birth.
Te research discussed in this section indicates that some basic perceptual and cogni-
tive mechanisms necessary for language learning are in place at birth. However, this does
not mean that these mechanisms are mature, or functionally ready, at birth, nor does it
mean that diferent learning experiencesmonolingualism, bilingualism, or culturally
based language socialization practiceshave no efect on the development of perceptual
or cognitive systems. Te cognitive abilities that support language learning develop within
social communicative contexts, and evidence that they are shaped by those contexts is
reviewed in the remainder of this chapter.
LANGUAGE DIFFERENTIATION IN BILINGUAL INFANTS
It must be true that infants learning two languages in infancy possess basic mechanisms
for keeping those languages separate, given that they learn which phonological and gram-
matical cues are relevant for each language. Te ability to diferentiate languages is present
early in infancy. As noted in the previous section, one of the frst aspects of spoken lan-
guage to which infants attend is prosody (i.e., the rhythm and melody of connected speech).
Research has shown that infants respond diferently to rhythmically distinct languages at
or even prior to birth. For example, English is classifed as a stress-timed language because
the duration between two stressed syllables is equal, and stressed syllables are longer in
duration than unstressed syllables; Mandarin and Spanish are syllable-timed languages,
in which stressed and unstressed syllables have roughly the same duration (see Gervain
& Werker, 2008). Kisilevsky and colleagues (2009) found that 33- to 41-week-old fetuses
whose mothers spoke English responded with diferent heart rates to passages in English
and Mandarin. Using HAS, Moon and colleagues (1993) found faster sucking rates for the
maternal language in 2-day-old infants whose mothers spoke either English or Spanish, and
Nazzi, Bertoncini, and Mehler (1998) showed that newborns can diferentiate two unfamil-
iar languages, but only when they are from diferent rhythmic classes (see also Mehler et
al., 1988).
Newborn infants exposed to two rhythmically distinct languages by a bilingual
mother diferentiate languages using the same basic perceptual and cognitive mechanisms
as monolingual infants. Byers-Heinlein et al. (2010) used HAS with infants whose moth-
ers spoke only English, both English and syllable-timed Tagalog, or English and Chinese
(Cantonese or Mandarin) during their pregnancies. Te bilingual and monolingual infants
showed dishabituation (acceleration of sucking rate afer deceleration from habituation)
when there was a switch between English and Tagalog. Te researchers also found a graded
pattern in infants listening preferences for English versus Tagalog, supporting the view that
infants use rhythm to tell languages apart. Monolingual English infants showed a strong
preference for English over Tagalog; EnglishTagalog bilingual infants had equally strong
Language Processing and Production 51
responses to both languages and a stronger response to Tagalog than monolingual infants;
and ChineseEnglish bilingual infants showed a slight preference for English over Tagalog
but a stronger response to Tagalog than monolingual English infants. Tis last fnding was
likely due to infants familiarity with the prosodic patterns of Cantonese and Mandarin,
both of which are rhythmically similar to Tagalog. Te results also extend the fnding that
newborn infants show a familiarity efect for a prosodic pattern they have heard pre- and/
or postnatally when tested only a few days afer birth.
Although rhythmic class is a powerful cue for language diferentiation, infants learn-
ing two rhythmically similar languages must rely on additional information. Bosch and
Sebastin-Galls (1997) investigated language diferentiation in infants learning Catalan
and Spanish. Although both are syllable-timed languages, they have some prosodic difer-
ences, including a greater prevalence of iambic (unstressed initial syllable; e.g., gi-RAFFE)
versus trochaic (stressed initial syllable; e.g., RO-bot) words and the occurrence of reduced
vowels (schwa) in unstressed syllables in Catalan but not Spanish. Te researchers recorded
how quickly infants shifed their eye gaze toward a loudspeaker each time it began to play
passages in either language. Monolingual 4-month-old infants learning either Catalan
or Spanish oriented more quickly to their native language, whereas bilingual infants ori-
ented equally quickly to both languages, even when one language was used more by their
mothers. In a follow-up study using a diferent testing procedure that relied on overall look-
ing times rather than reaction times, 4-month-old CatalanSpanish bilingual infants difer-
entiated their two languages (Bosch & Sebastin-Galls, 2001). Tus, bilingual infants can
detect switches from one of their languages to the other as young as 4 months, even when
those languages are from the same rhythmic class. It is important to note that one testing
method that was sensitive to language diferentiation in monolingual infants was not useful
for showing diferentiation in bilingual infants the same age, but another testing method
showed diferentiation in both groups. Tere are several examples in the literature in which
a similar phenomenon has occurred.
In addition to auditory-perceptual abilities, infants possess visual abilities that may be
used for learning aspects of spoken languages, and these skills may help bilingual infants
separate their language input. A study that compared bilingual and monolingual infants
of various ages provides intriguing evidence that bilingual infants may rely on visual cues
to speech to a greater extent than monolingual infants, at least when the two languages
they are learning have very diferent prosodies. Weikum and colleagues (2007) presented
Canadian infants from monolingual English, monolingual French, and bilingual English
French homes with videos of the same adults speaking English or French. Te sound was
turned of, and one video was played while infants watched; when the infants stopped watch-
ing the video (habituated), the video was switched to the other clip of the same speaker,
and recovery of looking time (dishabituation) to the language switch was measured. At
4 months, both bilingual and monolingual infants detected the language switch, but at 6 and
8 months, only bilingual infants succeeded. It is clear from this study and the other work on
early language diferentiation that infants possess various mechanisms they can use to keep
their input languages perceptually separate, even when the two languages are rhythmically
similar and even when both are spoken by the same caregivers. Tis means that having dif-
ferent people speak to infants in each language (e.g., a one-parent, one-language strategy)
52 Conboy
is not necessary for infants to learn language-specifc properties. In fact, such input is not
common in most bilingual situations, and its occurrence does not consistently lead to the
best outcomes (De Houwer, 2007).
ATTUNEMENT TO NATIVE PHONEME
CATEGORIES IN THE FIRST YEAR OF LIFE
Language learners undergo a process that involves tuning out information in their input
that is not relevant for learning the language as well as tuning in to information that is
relevant. Te limited research on this process in infants raised with two native languages
shows some diferences as well as many similarities between monolingual and bilingual frst
language acquisition. In this section, relevant data on monolingual infants, and available
data as well as current hypotheses regarding bilingual infants, are reviewed.
Among the frst linguistic features infants tune into are the phonetic properties of
speech sounds such as vowels and consonants. For example, Spanish has 5 distinct vowel
categories (monophthongs), and Standard American English has 12; each language also
has diferent consonant categories (see Chapter 15). Tus, infants learning English need to
perceive acoustic distinctions between certain vowels that are irrelevant for infants learning
Spanish, such as /i/ and /I/ in seat versus sit, and infants learning Spanish need to perceive
other distinctions irrelevant for English learners, such as the trill /r/ and tap // phonemes
that distinguish carro (car) and caro (expensive); infants learning both English and Span-
ish bilingually need to learn when each set of distinctions applies. Infants must also ignore
fundamental frequency and other acoustic aspects of interspeaker variability in order to
learn from many diferent speakers, and intraspeaker acoustic variations (e.g., in rate, loud-
ness, pitch) that are not relevant for forming phoneme categories in their language. Some
ability to ignore speaker diferences when discriminating among speech sounds is present
in newborns (Dehaene-Lambertz & Pea, 2001), but for the most part the ability to ignore
acoustic variations that are not relevant for the native language develops gradually (for a
review, see Kuhl, 2004). Researchers have used a variety of methods to determine when
infants perception narrows to favor the native language. In addition to heart rate, HAS,
ERP, and fNIRS methods, researchers have relied on infants looking behaviors to indicate
discrimination of speech sounds. For example, Eilers and colleagues (Eilers, Gavin, & Oller,
1982; Eilers, Gavin, & Wilson, 1979) tested 6- to 8-month-old infants from English- and
Spanish-speaking homes using a conditioned head turn task in which infants were trained
to turn their heads toward an interesting toy when they detected a change in stimulus.
Te results showed that infants perception varied according to their language background.
Using conditioned head turn with Canadian English-learning infants, Werker and Tees
(1984) determined that discrimination of nonnative phonemes declines between 6 and
12 months; subsequent research has replicated this pattern across language communities
using a variety of methods (see Kuhl, 2004, for a review). Several studies have also suggested
that native-language perception improves throughout infancy (Cheour et al., 1998; Conboy
et al., 2005; Kuhl et al., 2006; Rivera-Gaxiola, Silva-Pereyra, & Kuhl, 2005; Sundara, Polka,
& Genesee, 2006; Tsao, Liu, & Kuhl, 2006).
A number of factors have been proposed to explain developmental changes in percep-
tion of nonnative and native speech sounds. Monolingual English- and Spanish-learning
Language Processing and Production 53
infants both show ERP discriminatory responses to English and Spanish phoneme con-
trasts at 7 and 11 months, but the efects for native and nonnative contrasts change
with age, suggesting that language experience changes how the brain processes speech
(Rivera-Gaxiola et al., 2007; Rivera-Gaxiola, Silva-Pereyra, & Kuhl, 2005; see also Cheour
et al., 1998). Some nonnative speech sounds remain perceptible throughout life, possibly
because of their acoustic salience and how they relate to native-language phoneme cat-
egories (Best & McRoberts, 2003; Burnham, 1986; Werker & Curtin, 2005). For example,
11-month-old infants growing up in monolingual Spanish-speaking homes in central
Mexico discriminated the acoustically salient voiceless aspirated [t
h
] from voiceless unaspi-
rated [t] on a conditioned head turn task, even though [t
h
] does not occur in Spanish
(Conboy, Jackson-Maldonado, & Kuhl, 2009). Characteristics of some native speech sounds
also make them easier to perceive than others. Vowel categories are typically learned prior
to consonants, but vowels that are more acoustically distinct from one another are easier to
discriminate than are vowel pairs in close proximity, such as /e/ and // (Sebastin-Galls
& Bosch, 2009; see below), and native-language sounds that are acoustically salient are
discriminated at younger ages than less salient ones (Narayan, Werker, & Beddor, 2010).
Te frequency of occurrence of phonemes in the native language also infuences phoneme
category formation (Anderson, Morgan, & White, 2003).
Te exact relationships between speech sound perception and language development
are not known, but negative correlations between native and nonnative consonant discrim-
ination skills suggest that as infants become attuned to their native language, they tune
out phonetic distinctions that are irrelevant for their native language (Kuhl et al., 2008).
Bilingual and monolingual infants who have better native speech perception skills have
larger native-language vocabularies than infants with worse native speech perception skills,
whether vocabulary size is measured at the same age (Conboy et al., 2005, 2009) or at later
ages (Garca-Sierra et al., 2011; Kuhl et al., 2008; Kuhl, Conboy, Padden, Nelson, & Pruitt,
2005; Tsao, Liu, & Kuhl, 2004). Monolingual infants who retain the ability to perceive
nonnative speech sounds for a longer period of time have smaller native-language vocabu-
laries in the second and third years than infants who tune out the same contrast (Kuhl
et al., 2008; Rivera-Gaxiola, Klarman, Silva-Pereyra, & Kuhl, 2005). Moreover, cognitive
control skills operating across domains of learning may assist infants in ignoring irrelevant
cues while attending to those cues that are relevant for their native language. Monolin-
gual infants at 811 months who tune out nonnative speech sounds have better cognitive
abilities than those who continue to perceive nonnative contrasts (Conboy, Sommerville,
& Kuhl, 2008; Lalonde & Werker, 1995). It is not known whether relationships between
nonnative perception and other language and cognitive skills apply to bilingual infants. Te
process of learning diferent phoneme categories across two languages may lead bilingual
infants to maintain less committed perceptual systems (Kuhl, 2004), a form of percep-
tual wedge that is advantageous for the bilingual case (Petitto, 2009). Studies with 7- and
8-month-old infants from monolingual and bilingual homes suggest that the experience of
switching between diferent sets of language cues in early bilingualism enhances domain-
general cognitive control abilities (Ibaez, Pons, Costa, & Sebastin-Galls, 2010; Kovcs
& Mehler, 2009a). Research has yet to link cognitive control abilities in bilingual infants to
particular language-learning processes, such as the tuning out of irrelevant phonetic cues,
54 Conboy
but it is now clear that bilingual and monolingual infants develop nonequivalent language
and cognitive processing systems (see Adesope, Lavin, Tompson, & Ungerleider, 2010;
Bialystok, 2009).
Several studies conducted with infants in Barcelona acquiring Catalan and/or Span-
ish have focused primarily on how the distribution of sounds in the input afects bilingual
versus monolingual perception. Catalan has three vowels not found in Spanish, including
//. Te acoustic values of Spanish /e/ fall roughly halfway between those of Catalan /e/
and //; thus, Bosch and Sebastin-Galls (2003b) predicted that bilingual infants might
perceptually group together the three vowels into a single category. Te researchers com-
pared infants auditory attention to minimal pair stimuli (tokens of [dei] and [d i]) by
measuring how long the infants looked at a fashing light mounted above a speaker playing
repetitions of the stimuli. Infants were familiarized with one set of stimuli, and, during the
test phase, listening times were compared for tokens that matched the familiarized stimu-
lus or switched to the other stimulus. Regardless of language background, 4-month-old
infants showed longer looking times for the familiar versus the unfamiliar stimuli, indi-
cating discrimination of the two vowels. As expected, 8-month-old monolingual Catalan
infants discriminated the contrast, but monolingual Spanish infants, who do not hear //
in their input, did not. An unexpected fnding was that bilingual 8-month-olds did not
discriminate the Catalan /e/ from //, though their language input contained these vow-
els. However, by 12 months, bilingual infants succeeded. Te authors interpreted the dip
in discrimination at 8 months as resulting from a temporary merging of the three vowel
categories into one based on how bilingual infants hear the vowels in their input. In other
words, it may be thought of as an appropriate response to properties of the bilingual input
rather than a delay induced by bilingualism (for similar results with diferent contrasts, see
Bosch & Sebastin-Galls, 2003a; Sebastin-Galls & Bosch, 2009).
Te many similarities between Catalan and Spanish may also afect infants ability to
discriminate sounds that overlap in those two languages. Sundara and Scutellaro (2010)
found that EnglishSpanish bilingual infants living in Los Angeles had no dif culty dis-
criminating English /e/ and // at 8 months, suggesting that when infants are learning
two languages with quite diferent prosody they may not perceptually merge members of
close vowel categories. Burns, Yoshida, Hill, and Werker (2007) also found no evidence
for a lag in discrimination or perceptual merging of acoustically close stop consonants in
EnglishFrench Canadian bilingual infants. French stops have earlier voice onset times
(VOTs) than English stops; the same sound, voiceless unaspirated [p], is perceived as /p/
by French speakers and as /b/ by English speakers. Tus, bilingual EnglishFrench infants
need to develop diferent phoneme category boundaries along the same VOT continuum
for each of their languages. Burns et al. (2007) found that both monolingual English and
bilingual 6- to 8-month-old infants discriminated the French /ba/-/pa/ contrast, but at
later ages only the bilingual infants, who had exposure to French, discriminated those
sounds. In contrast to the results of Bosch and Sebastin-Galls (2003b), bilingual infants
succeeded in discriminating both contrasts at all three ages (see also Sundara, Polka, &
Molnar, 2008, for a similar result with a diferent phonetic contrast). Finally, Albareda-
Castellot, Pons, and Sebastin-Galls (2011) found that 8-month-old bilingual Catalan
Spanish infants succeeded in discriminating /e/ and // when an anticipatory looking
Language Processing and Production 55
task was used rather than the familiarization-preference task used by Bosch and
Sebastin-Galls (2003b).
Te results across studies with bilingual infants show that bilingual infants do not
lag behind monolingual infants in phonetic perceptual development, though temporary
perceptual merging in bilingual infants may occur when there is overlap between input
cues. However, merging does not seem to occur for all close phoneme pairs nor for all
bilingual infants. It is important to consider that there may be nothing uniquely bilin-
gual about this pattern, because temporary perceptual merging has also been noted in
8-month-old monolingual English-learning Canadian infants tested on discrimination of
the acoustically close English vowels /e/ and /I/ (Sabourin, Werker, Bosch, & Sebastin-
Galls, 2009). Rather, the ways that sounds are distributed in the input language could play
a role: CatalanSpanish infants are exposed to many cognate words across the languages
that difer by only a single vowel (e.g., /e/ versus //), and monolingual infants learning the
Western Canadian dialect of English hear many variants in the phonetic realization of /e/
in their input; in both cases, infants may be willing to accept more variability in their early
phoneme categories (Sabourin et al., 2009). It is also important to note that, as is the case
with many studies of infants and young children, diferent testing conditions lead to dif-
ferent results across studies. Researchers are increasingly using methods that minimize the
cognitive demands on infants, such as the ERP technique described earlier. ERPs do not
require an overt response and may refect diferences in the neural activity linked to each
language as well as the time course of processing. Shafer, Yu, and Datta (2011) used ERPs
to test the discrimination skills of bilingual and monolingual infants and young children
learning English and Spanish in New York City. Children were tested on the vowels // and
/I/, which are phonemes in English but not Spanish. Across infants, there was evidence of
discrimination in the ERPs, but these efects varied according to age and language experi-
ence. Brain responses were diferent in bilingual than in monolingual infants, suggest-
ing that bilingual infants may recruit additional cognitive resources for processing speech
contrasts.
Precisely how much and what types of language exposure infants need to extract the
features of a languages phoneme categories remains unknown. Studies of monolingual
infants learning English, Japanese, and Mandarin have suggested that sociocultural fac-
tors such as the characteristics of infant-directed speech may facilitate the formation of
phoneme categories (Kuhl et al., 1997; Liu, Tsao, & Kuhl, 2003, 2007; Werker et al., 2007;
see Kuhl, 2007, for a review). Yet not all adults interact with infants or use infant-directed
speech in the same ways (Rogof, 2003). For infants raised bilingually, diferent amounts and
types of input in each language typically result in uneven language learning (see Chapter 6
in this volume, for example). Tese diferences may occur very early in development and set
the infant on diferent growth trajectories for each language. Using ERPs, Garca-Sierra and
colleagues (2011) investigated phoneme discrimination (English and Spanish /da/ versus
/ta/, which vary in VOT; see the Burns et al., 2007, study described previously) in bilingual
EnglishSpanish infants in San Antonio, Texas. At 1012 months of age, the size of an ERP
discriminatory efect for phoneme contrasts in each language was associated with relative
amounts of English and Spanish input in infants homes, as reported by parents, and both
variables were linked to later expressive vocabulary in each language.
56 Conboy
Studies of monolingual infants exposed to a second language naturalistically have
shown that social contexts facilitate rapid phonetic learning. Kuhl, Tsao, and Liu (2003)
provided 9- to 10-month-old infants from English-speaking homes with play ses-
sions conducted in Mandarin or English and then tested the infants at 11 months on a
Mandarin speech contrast using conditioned head turn. Infants who received the English
sessions could not discriminate the contrast, but the infants exposed to Mandarin showed
discrimination similar to Taiwanese Mandarin-learning infants. Moreover, infants who
received exposure to Mandarin through DVDs, from the same speakers as the infants who
attended the play sessions, did not show discrimination of the contrast. In a follow-up
study, Conboy and Kuhl (2011) provided naturalistic exposure to Spanish to monolingual
English-learning infants from 9.510.5 months. In this study, infants were tested using
the same Spanish and English contrasts and ERP paradigm used in the Garca-Sierra et
al. (2011), Rivera-Gaxiola, Silva-Pereyra, & Kuhl (2005) and Rivera-Gaxiola et al. (2007)
studies described previously and were tested before and afer the 12 sessions of exposure
to Spanish. Prior to Spanish exposure, infants showed an ERP discriminatory efect (simi-
lar to the efect noted for native-language perception in Rivera-Gaxiola et al., 2007) only
for the English contrast; afer the exposure, at 11 months, infants showed the efect for
both the English and Spanish contrasts. An analysis of infants behaviors during the expo-
sure sessions indicated that infants who showed more joint attention episodes with the
Spanish tutors had larger ERP efects to Spanish afer the exposure sessions (Conboy,
Brooks, Meltzof, & Kuhl, 2011). Together, these studies suggest that social engagement
with speakers of a language is important for early phonetic learning. Te results also show
that even small amounts of naturalistic experience with a second language can afect
infants speech perception.
Te research reviewed here on how bilingual infants develop perceptual categories for
phonemes in each language leads to the conclusion that linguistic input factors (absolute
amounts of input in each language, the relative dominance of one language over the other
in the input, and the specifc ways in which particular speech sounds are distributed in
the input to bilingual infants) play a role. Additional input factors such as the amounts of
code-switching caregivers use with infants, the extent to which infants hear infant-directed
speech in each respective language, and the extent to which infants hear bilingual speakers
who use diferent acoustic values for phonemes than monolingual speakers may also play
a role, but these factors remain to be explored. Moreover, input factors afect perception
diferently depending on the maturation of infants neurophysiology and anatomy, and
on other infant-level factors. Te studies of infants acquiring a second language at 911
months described in this section suggest that social interaction factorsboth the social
context provided and infants emerging social-cognitive skills that allow them to jointly
engage with adults providing language inputmay infuence phonetic learning.
In addition to perceiving phoneme categories, infants begin to produce language-
specifc speech sounds during the frst year. As noted previously, the efects of the native
language on the prosody of infants cries have been reported. Segmental aspects of speech,
such as distinctions between diferent vowels and consonants, are acquired later (see
Chapter 15). Infants vocalizations gradually come to refect experience with the native
language(s) as well as maturation of the anatomical structures used for producing speech.
A milestone achieved by typically developing hearing infants by 10 months, canonical
Language Processing and Production 57
babbling, is the production of well-formed syllables that contain phonetic elements
from the infants native language. Oller, Eilers, Urbano, and Cobo-Lewis (1997) studied
the emergence of canonical babbling in infants from monolingual English, monolingual
Spanish, and bilingual EnglishSpanish homes. Using parent report and direct sampling,
the researchers found no evidence of a lag in the onset of canonical babbling, nor any quan-
titative diferences in the proportion of well-formed syllables and vowel-like sounds, in
bilingual compared to monolingual infants. Other studies have explored bilingual infants
vocalizations to determine whether there is a single phonological pattern or separate
patterns for each language. What is clear is that there is no one individual pattern to
which all bilingual infants adhere, even those who have the same parents (e.g., Schnitzer &
Krasinski, 1996). However, the language context in which babbling is recorded is likely
to infuence the patterns noted. Ward et al. (2009) recorded speech samples from 11- to
12-month-old infants from monolingual English-speaking homes who had previously
received short-term exposure to Spanish through naturalistic play sessions (i.e., infants in
the Conboy & Kuhl, 2011 study). Infants systematically used longer utterances and more
multisyllabic units in the Spanish context than in the English context. Tus, even a small
amount of exposure to a second language in infancy may have an impact on speech produc-
tion as well as speech perception.
As with perception, the social nature of language input also afects infants early
vocalizations. Goldstein and Schwade (2008) examined the babbling of 9.5-month-old
English-learning infants whose mothers were instructed to provide models of vocal produc-
tion contingent upon the infants vocalizations or in a noncontingent fashion. Te infants
given contingent feedback changed their vocalizations to match those of their mothers,
whereas the infants who received noncontingent feedback did not. Diferent social contexts
for learning two languages could therefore lead to diferent patterns of acquisition for each.
Many infants and toddlers raised bilingually receive input in one language from a diferent
speaker than for their other language, and the extent to which speakers provide contin-
gent feedback and other features of infant-directed speech could lead to unequal devel-
opment in each language. Ramrez-Esparza, Garca-Sierra, and Kuhl (2010) found that
10- to 16-month-old infants raised with bilingual EnglishSpanish input or monolingual
English input produced more babbling when their parents used infant-directed speech ver-
sus adult-directed speech in their presence.
Te research on early speech sound perception and production reviewed in this sec-
tion shows that infants growing up with two frst languages constitute a unique but diverse
group of learners. Tere is no strong evidence that bilingualism per se leads to a delay in the
acquisition of early milestones in speech perception or production, but diferences brought
on by the problem space bilingual learners face can be mistaken for delays. Diferent pat-
terns may be noted in one group of bilingual learners but not another because of linguistic
properties of the two languages infants are learning and/or sociocultural factors.
EARLY LEXICAL DEVELOPMENT:
SEGMENTATION, REPRESENTATIONS, MEANING, AND PROCESSING
During their frst year, infants begin to develop a lexicon in whatever language or languages
to which they are exposed. Te frst signs of word learning are noted in how infants respond
to particular word forms that they have heard many times. Parents begin to become fairly
58 Conboy
reliable reporters of infants word recognition as early as 8 months (Fenson et al., 1993), but
experiments show that infants recognize highly frequent words, such as their own names,
by 46 months (Mandel, Jusczyk, & Pisoni, 1995; Tincof & Jusczyk, 1999). Studies of
receptive vocabulary size in large samples of infants, using parent-report inventories that
contain checklists of common words (the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Develop-
ment Inventories [CDI]), show large variability across English monolingual American
infants (e.g., Fenson et al., 1993) and Spanish monolingual Mexican infants (e.g., Jackson-
Maldonado et al., 2003). In infants growing up bilingually, similar ranges are seen when
researchers use composite scores that take into account word knowledge distributed across
both languages (e.g., Conboy & Tal, 2006; Marchman & Martnez-Sussmann, 2002;
Pearson, Fernndez, & Oller, 1993; see also Chapter 6). Individual diferences in rates of
lexical development are observed throughout the life span and are infuenced by multiple
factors, including amounts and types of input with each language as well as child-level fac-
tors (Bornstein, Haynes, & Painter, 1998; Fenson et al., 1994; Hart & Risley, 1995; see also
Chapter 6). Bornstein and colleagues (2006) found that individual diferences in monolin-
gual infants information-processing skills at 4 months predicted subsequent rates of devel-
opment in cognition and language up to 4 years of age, even afer other endogenous factors
(such as childrens temperament) and exogenous factors (such as the home environment
and maternal education levels) were statistically controlled. Variability in rates of word
learning across bilingual infants would be expected to be as great, if not greater, than that
in monolingual infants due to the varieties of ways bilingual infants receive input in each
language and the linguistic properties of the two languages they are learning, in addition to
the same factors that infuence monolingual development.
Te research reviewed in the frst two sections of this chapter has shown how infants
may use domain-general cognitive abilities to extract phonetic features from language input.
Similar abilities may be used to launch the word-learning process. Before infants can map
word forms to meaning, they frst need to segment word forms from the speech stream,
given that the majority of utterances directed to them occur as continuous speech rather
than as isolated words (Brent & Siskind, 2001). Segmentation abilities in the latter part of
the frst year predict later vocabulary skills (Newman, Bernstein Ratner, Jusczyk, Jusczyk,
& Dow, 2006); thus, ef ciency at recognizing words in the speech stream as familiar units
may be an important mechanism for facilitating subsequent learning of word meanings. By
8 months, infants have been shown to use bottom-up strategies, such as statistical learning,
to detect word boundaries, pick out words from continuous speech, and map these words
to meaningful referents (Graf Estes, Evans, Alibali, & Safran, 2007; Safran et al., 1996). By
68 months, infants have also been shown to use top-down strategies, such as identifying
word onsets that are adjacent to words they already know (e.g., identifying new words that
come directly afer known words such as mommy and the; Bortfeld, Morgan, Golinkof, &
Rathbun, 2005; Shi & Lepage, 2008); however, infants younger than 1 year have few familiar,
recognizable words to use for such top-down segmentation. How bilingual infants learn dif-
ferent sets of statistical cues to word boundaries across each language remains to be shown,
but work with adults suggests that statistical learning of two languages simultaneously is
possible (Weiss, Gerfen, & Mitchel, 2009).
Te use of transitional probabilities as cues to word boundaries can only take infants
so far; thus, infants must also be able to use other cues for segmentation (Jusczyk, 1999).
Bilingual Language Development of ELLs 59
Infants may also use their sensitivity to prosodic features of languages for bottom-up word
segmentation. English contains many stressed monosyllabic words, and the majority of
English disyllabic words adhere to a strongweak (trochaic) stress pattern in which the
initial stressed syllable is louder and longer in duration than the unstressed syllable (e.g.,
MOM-my). Infants learning English show a listening preference for trochaic over iambic
words by 6 months and segment trochaic words from the speech stream by 7.5 months,
but fail to segment iambic words until 10.5 months (for reviews, see Jusczyk, 1999; Pons
& Bosch, 2010). Given the preponderance of disyllabic trochaic and stressed monosyl-
labic content words (nouns, verbs, and modifers) in English, treating stressed syllables as
cues to word onsets would be a reliable strategy for picking out words in English, but this
strategy would not work for all words or for all languages. Infants learning languages that
do not have trochaic words, such as French, do not show a preference for trochaic words
(Hhle, Bijeljac-Babic, Herold, Weissenborn, & Nazzi, 2009), and they segment disyllabic
words with iambic patterns (i.e., fnal syllable lengthening) by 8 months (Polka & Sundara,
2003; but see Nazzi, Iakimova, Bertoncini, Frdonie, & Alcantara, 2006). Polka and Sundara
(2003) found that bilingual infants learning two rhythmically diferent languages, English
and French, could segment English as well as French disyllabic words by 8 months, indicat-
ing that they use diferent strategies for each language.
Te properties of English and Spanish and data on other language groups lead to cer-
tain predictions regarding how EnglishSpanish bilingual infants might use lexical stress
to segment words from the speech stream. EnglishSpanish bilingual infants might adopt
diferent segmentation strategies for each language based on the input they hear, as was
found with EnglishFrench infants (Polka & Sundara, 2003). Spanish, like French, is a
syllable-timed language, but unlike French, roughly 60% of its disyllabic words are trochaic,
and, like English but unlike French, Spanish uses stress patterns to contrast word meaning
(e.g., the trochaic papa, pope, versus the iambic pap, dad; Pons & Bosch, 2010). However,
unlike English, Spanish also has many iambic words, and there is no reduction of vowels
in unstressed syllables to schwa. Pons and Bosch (2010) found that 9-month-old mono-
lingual Spanish-learning infants in Barcelona preferred listening to CVC-CV (in which C
is a consonant and V is a vowel) trochaic versus iambic patterns and to CV-CVC iambic
versus trochaic patterns. Tese preferences were expected because most Spanish CVC-CV
words used with children are trochaic (e.g., lindo, pretty) and most CV-CVC words are
iambic (e.g., calor, hot). Alternatively, EnglishSpanish bilingual infants might not be able
to use lexical stress alone for segmenting disyllabic words in Spanish given the variability
of stress patterns in words in Spanishthey might apply the English trochaic strategy to
both languages or simply succeed in English segmentation but fail in Spanish segmentation
until they are able to use additional cues. Preliminary data with monolingual and bilingual
Catalan and Spanish-learning 8-month-old infants show that they are equally able to seg-
ment monosyllabic words, suggesting no delay in this ability in bilingual infants; data on
disyllabic words are not yet available (Bosch, Figueras, & Ramon-Casas, 2008). It is impor-
tant to note that results from infants in Spain might not apply to infants learning American
dialects of Spanish, particularly ones in which many trisyllabic diminutive forms are used
with infants instead of their disyllabic counterparts (e.g., dedito, little fnger), because such
diferences can change the weighting of lexical stress patterns and syllable structure cues in
the input. Moreover, when bilingual infants hear many people code-switching, common in
60 Conboy
several EnglishSpanish bilingual communities in the United States, stress patterns in the
input might difer from those in other Spanish-speaking language communities.
As infants accrue experience with the particular phonetic features of their native
language(s), they detect word boundaries using phonotactic rules governing which pho-
neme sequences can occur in words in the language, and knowledge about allophonic vari-
ations in how particular phonemes are realized phonetically depending on their position in
a syllable or word. By 9 months, infants can quickly learn new phonotactic regularities and
use these to segment words (Safran & Tiessen, 2003). CatalanSpanish bilingual infants
are sensitive to phonotactic constraints, even when they difer across languages (Sebastin-
Galls & Bosch, 2002). Catalan, like English, allows some consonant clusters in word-fnal
position that Spanish does not allow. Bilingual 10-month-old infants listened longer to lists
of pseudowords that were phonotactically legal for Catalan than to illegal pseudowords,
and this preference was more pronounced in infants who heard more Catalan at home. It is
important to note that there was no diference between Catalan monolingual and Catalan
bilingual infants. Infants also learn how allophonic variations in words cue word onsets
and ofsets between 9 and 11 months (for reviews, see Gervain & Werker, 2008; Jusczyk,
1999). For example, by 10.5 months, monolingual English-learning infants can detect word
boundaries using allophonic cues (e.g., the acoustic diferences between nitrates and night
rates; Jusczyk, Hohne, & Bauman, 1999). English voiceless stop consonants (i.e., /p/, /t/,
/k/) are aspirated when in the initial position of a stressed syllable, but their unaspirated
allophonic variants are used in other positions. In Spanish, voiced stop consonants (i.e.,
/b/, /d/, /g/) are used in phrase-initial position, following nasals, and following [l] in the
case of /d/, but their spirantized allophones (i.e., [], [], []) are used in other phonetic
contexts, though there are many variations across dialects (see Chapter 15). Whether and
how Spanish-learning monolingual or EnglishSpanish bilingual infants use allophonic
cues for segmenting words remains to be investigated.
Te ability to recognize new words from connected speech using multiple cues and
strategies is thus present by the end of the frst year. A recent study suggests that infants
placed in a second language situation can learn to recognize words. Conboy and Kuhl
(2010) recorded ERPs to words in 11-month-old infants from monolingual English-
speaking homes who had previously received short-term laboratory-based exposure to
Spanish through naturalistic play sessions from 9.5 to 10.5 months (i.e., infants in the
Conboy & Kuhl, 2011, study). Diferent neural responses were observed to words used
during those sessions and to Spanish words the infants had never heard, suggesting that
infants can segment new word forms and hold them in memory over several weeks, even
when the words are presented in complex connected speech in another language that has
diferent statistical, rhythmic, phonotactic, and allophonic cues than the native language.
Simultaneous bilingual infants would be expected to keep pace with monolinguals on
segmentation and would perhaps develop unique abilities. For example, 12-month-old
bilingual infants simultaneously learned two diferent patterns for how syllables could be
ordered in speech (i.e., AAB or ABA patterns, in which A represents one syllable and B
another syllable); monolingual infants the same age succeeded in learning only one pattern
(Kovcs & Mehler, 2009b). Tis study did not directly address speech segmentation or the
learning of phonotactic or allophonic rules, but the results suggest that bilingual infants
become more fexible learners of multiple speech patterns than monolingual infants. Te
Language Processing and Production 61
experience of constantly being faced with competing sets of linguistic cues could sharpen
bilingual infants ability to avoid interference, and could also facilitate further learning in
those infants.
Vihman, Tierry, Lum, Keren-Portnoy, and Martin (2007) proposed that word recog-
nition skills may vary across bilingual and monolingual infants due to diferent phonologi-
cal patterns in the languages. Tey tested infants from English and Welsh bilingual and
monolingual homes at 9 to 12 months using an ERP familiarunfamiliar word paradigm
and a behavioral head turn preference task. Te monolingual English-learning infants rec-
ognized English trochaic words by 10 months, but the monolingual Welsh-learning infants
did not recognize Welsh trochaic words at any point between 9 and 12 months. Te bilin-
gual infants showed an intermediate pattern, recognizing both English and Welsh words
by 11 months. Te authors proposed that experience with English leads infants to pay
attention to word onsets because word-initial stress is phonetically realized as increased
duration, intensity, and pitch of the vowel in that syllable. In contrast, Welsh, though also
a stress-timed language with many trochaic words, phonetically realizes this accentual pat-
tern with a shorter vowel in the stressed syllable and a longer consonant and vowel in
the unstressed second syllable. It is important to note that this fnding does not refect a
delay induced by bilingualism, because bilingual infants outperformed monolingual Welsh
infants. Infants learning both languages may pay greater attention to word-initial cues than
infants learning only Welsh but less attention than infants learning only English. Te results
of Vihman et al. s study led to the prediction that bilingual infants learning English and
another language with a diferent stress pattern (e.g., Spanish) may show less attention to
initial consonants in words from both languages than monolingual infants learning only
English. However, it is possible that decreased attention to initial consonants and syllables
in Welsh may be infuenced by other linguistic factors that do not occur in Spanish. For
example, Welsh has a grammatical property not found in English or Spanish in which the
initial consonants of nouns change according to the nouns grammatical gender.
Te possibility that word recognition is afected by circumstances unique to bilin-
gualism has been supported by studies of infants as they process newly learned words.
Werker and colleagues have proposed that, in infants just starting to build a vocabulary,
the demands of learning the meaning of a new word and learning the phonological form
of that word simultaneously compete for limited cognitive resources and initially result in
phonologically underspecifed representations (e.g., Stager & Werker, 1997; see also Hall
& de Boysson-Bardies, 1996). Monolingual infants recognize mispronunciations of newly
learned pseudowords that are phonetically close (e.g., dih for bih) at 1718 months but
not 14 months; younger infants detect mispronunciations (e.g., vaby for baby) when not
required to link the word to meaning, when the word is very familiar, or when there is
a greater phonetic distance between the correct and mispronounced word (for a review,
see Werker, Byers-Heinlein, & Fennell, 2009). Studies of bilingual infants have revealed
conficting results that can, to some extent, be traced to diferences in test paradigms. In
two studies, children were tested using a switch task in which they were presented with
pseudowordpicture pairings and afer repeated exposures, the pairings were switched and
the pseudoword was pronounced correctly or incorrectly. Fennell, Byers-Heinlein, and
Werker (2007) found that EnglishFrench bilingual infants did not detect mispronuncia-
tions of newly learned pseudowords even at 17 months, an age at which monolingual infants
62 Conboy
succeed. However, Mattock, Polka, Rvachew, and Krehm (2010) found that EnglishFrench
bilingual infants the same age succeeded when words were presented in a bilingual mode
(i.e., using both English and French pronunciations of the pseudowords), whereas mono-
lingual infants from both language backgrounds failed, likely because they were not used
to hearing words pronounced with the other languages phonology. However, monolingual
infants did succeed when tested in a monolingual mode.
Ramon-Casas, Swingley, Sebastin-Galls, and Bosch (2009) suggest that bilingual
children may learn to ignore mispronunciations in a language when they are raised with
input from a parent who is not a native speaker of that language. Tey tested children using
a preferential looking paradigm in which two pictures were presented simultaneously with
a spoken word that matched one of the two pictures. On some trials the target word was
pronounced correctly, and on others the vowel was changed to one that contrasts meaning
in Catalan only (e.g., /e/ to //) or in both languages (e.g., /e/ to /i/). Spanish monolingual
and CatalanSpanish bilingual 18- to 28-month-old children treated word mispronuncia-
tions that involved a Catalan contrast as acceptable variants of the target word, whereas
monolingual Catalan children favored correctly pronounced Catalan words. However,
when the mispronunciation involved a vowel change contrastive in both languages,
Spanish monolingual and bilingual children showed a mispronunciation efect. Older
bilingual children (3155 months) favored correct pronunciations over mispronunciations
that involved a Catalan vowel contrast, but only when they had more Catalan than Spanish
exposure in the home. Te authors suggested that because many bilingual infants in this
community hear Catalan from native Spanish-speaking parents, they may hear less of a
distinction between acoustically close Catalan vowels and learn to ignore such distinctions.
Te results of these studies raise an important point about receptive language testing with
young children. If an examiner has limited profciency in the language used for testing,
the results should be interpreted with caution, as mispronunciations may afect word rec-
ognition. Yet, it may also be true that bilingual children adapt their processing systems to
accommodate the phonological systems of both languages, especially when the language
pairs have many cognates and in bilingual communities in which there is larger variability
in pronunciation due to speakers of multiple dialects as well as nonnative speakers. Further
research on these topics is needed.
During their second and third years, children encode the meanings of many new
words as well as their phonological forms. Bilingual children learn words at similar rates
as monolingual children, though their learning is distributed across two languages and
single-language vocabulary sizes can be smaller than those of monolingual children the
same age (for a review, see Chapter 6). It is important to realize that such patterns do
not represent any sort of a delay in vocabulary development. Tere is evidence that 20-
month-old monolingual toddlers rapidly learn the meanings of novel words even when they
are taught in foreign language sentence frames (Bijeljac-Babic, Nassurally, Havy, & Nazzi,
2009). Tus, there is no reason to believe that naturalistic exposure to a second language
would hinder word learning. However, little is known about word-learning mechanisms in
bilingual toddlers. Byers-Heinlein and Werker (2009) investigated whether toddlers learn-
ing more than one language were more likely to associate novel words with novel objects
rather than with objects for which they had already learned a name. Tis ability (known as
Language Processing and Production 63
disambiguation) was present in 17- to 18-month-old infants from monolingual homes and,
to a lesser extent, infants from bilingual backgrounds. However, it was not noted in infants
that age from trilingual backgrounds. Tese results suggest that disambiguation processes
are infuenced by infants early language experiences. However, by 2735 months, bilingual
children use the disambiguation strategy at the same levels as monolingual children the
same age (Frank & Poulin-Dubois, 2002). Te adaptive ability of infants acquiring multiple
languages to initially accept multiple labels for the same item to a greater extent than mono-
lingual infants may explain how they keep pace with monolingual infants in learning new
words, but this ability may change with increasing age and language experience as other
skills become available to facilitate word learning.
Ef ciency in processing newly learned words also improves over the second and third
years, and in bilingual toddlers, processing ef ciency is linked to vocabulary develop-
ment in each language. Using a preferential looking paradigm, Marchman, Fernald, and
Hurtado (2010) examined spoken word processing in 30-month-old children learning English
and Spanish simultaneously in the San Francisco, California, area. Children were presented
with two pictures and an auditory word in a sentence frame; their eye gazes to the picture
that matched the word were measured. A previous study of monolingual Spanish-learning
toddlers that used the same test procedure had shown that speed of word recognition at
18 and 24 months was linked to vocabulary size and to the quantity and quality of the
language input children received (Hurtado, Marchman, & Fernald, 2008). In the bilingual
sample studied by Marchman et al. (2010), MacArthur-Bates CDI scores indicated that
some children had larger English expressive vocabularies and others had larger Spanish
vocabularies, and these patterns were linked to relative amounts of exposure to each lan-
guage. Eye movements showed that children processed words more rapidly in the language
with the larger vocabulary size. Children who were faster at processing words in one lan-
guage were not necessarily faster at processing words in their other language, indicating
that processing ef ciency is linked to experience with individual words.
Word processing has also been studied using the ERP technique, which can detect
the activation of diferent groups of neurons used at various stages of word processing.
Conboy and Mills (2006) used an ERP knownunknown word paradigm with 20-month-
old toddlers who were raised with English and Spanish in San Diego, California. Te ERPs
to English and Spanish words that children were reported by their parents to know and
that the children identifed on a picture-pointing task were compared to ERPs to unknown
words in each language. Childrens expressive vocabulary sizes in each language were also
measured using the MacArthur-Bates CDIs. Children with larger conceptual vocabulary
sizes (a score that counted each concept for which the child knew a word in either language;
see Chapter 6 for more detail on this topic) showed more ef cient processing in both lan-
guages compared to children with smaller conceptual vocabularies, indicating that among
children the same age, variation in vocabulary size is linked to how the brain processes
words. In ERP studies, ef cient processing is typically defned as faster processing and spe-
cialization of processing to more focal areas of the brain (Mills, Conboy, & Paton, 2005).
Bilingual toddlers word processing was also associated with relative vocabulary sizes in
each language, with earlier and more focal efects noted for the language with the larger
vocabulary. Vocabulary size is only one indication of language experience, however; in this
64 Conboy
study, childrens vocabulary sizes in each language corresponded to parents reports about
which language children heard the most. Te diferent patterns noted for each language of
the same children show that language experience and learning are linked to how the brain
processes words in each language above and beyond maturation.
Te Conboy and Mills (2006) study partially replicated results from previous studies of
monolingual English-learning toddlers the same age (e.g., Mills, Cofey-Corina & Neville,
1997). Yet two important diferences were seen in the ERP efects at a particular point in
processing (200600 milliseconds afer each word was presented). First, in previous studies
of monolingual 20-month-olds, ERP efects in this time range were limited to lef temporal
and parietal sites, but in the bilingual 20-month-olds, the efects for each language were
broadly distributed across hemispheres, more closely resembling patterns noted in younger
monolingual children with similar vocabulary sizes in each language. Tis is consistent
with numerous studies showing that bilingual children typically know fewer words in each
separate language than monolingual children because of the distributed nature of bilingual
lexical development (see Chapter 6) and with previous reports that the ef ciency of process-
ing is linked to vocabulary size (Mills et al., 1997). Second, for the bilingual children with
larger conceptual vocabulary sizes, the efects were largest at right-anterior sites but only for
words in the language with the larger vocabulary. Moreover, this right-anterior efect was
only observed when children were tested in a mixed-language condition in which words
alternated randomly between English and Spanish; it was not observed when a separate
group of bilingual children was tested in a single-language condition, hearing blocks of only
English or Spanish words at a time. Children tested on one language at a time also showed
earlier efects than children tested in the mixed-language condition, indicating more ef -
cient processing. Tese results are consistent with studies of older bilingual children and
adults that have shown it can take additional time and cognitive resources to access words
when both languages are activated (see Chapter 5). Although ERPs do not provide precise
information about the localization of brain activity, relative diferences in efects indicate
that distinct populations of neurons are activated, and refect diferent cognitive resources
being used for processing words across conditions. Tis fnding needs to be replicated in a
larger sample of children tested in both conditions, but the results suggest that the unique
circumstances of bilingualismactivation of two competing language systemsgive rise
to slight variations in processing systems and that these are noted early in development.
Preliminary evidence from a follow-up study with 2-year-olds from EnglishSpanish back-
grounds in San Antonio, Texas, suggests that children with more advanced executive func-
tion skills show more ef cient word processing when tested in a mixed-language condition
than children with less advanced cognitive skills, indicating possible interactions between
language and nonlinguistic cognitive processing (Conboy, Sommerville, Wicha, Romo, &
Kuhl, 2011).
Te studies described in this section suggest that at early ages bilingual children
adapt their language processing skills to accommodate the unique demands of bilingual-
ism, such as switching between languages. Additional evidence of word processing difer-
ences between bilingual and monolingual infants was provided by an ERP study of children
acquiring English and Welsh in North Wales. Kuipers and Tierry (2011) presented 2- and
3-year-old children with pictures of familiar objects and a word that either matched or
Language Processing and Production 65
did not match the picture in English (75% of the time) or in Welsh (25% of the time).
Bilingual children rapidly detected the language switch (an early efect was noted in their
ERPs within 200 milliseconds of hearing the word, similar to one reported in a study of
bilingual adults). Monolingual English-learning children did not show this early efect but
did show a later efect, indicating the use of diferent processes. In other words, the bilin-
gual children showed a unique language-change detection process that was not noted in
monolingual children, who are not normally faced with two languages in their daily lives.
SUMMARY AND CLINICAL APPLICATIONS
Te research reviewed in this chapter shows that bilingual and monolingual infants have
similar developmental trajectories for certain skills but not others, and that when diferences
are noted, they refect the use of adaptive learning processes. Te focus of early bilingual-
ism research is moving away from questions about whether there are defcits or bene-
fts associated with bilingualism, and toward a more unifed, dynamic theory of how brain
plasticity allows for adaptation to changing circumstances and requirements of learning. In
spite of research fndings, there seems to be a persistent theme in both research and practice
that considers monolingualism to be a standard against which other forms of frst language
acquisition should be judged. Such a standard fails to value the unique aspects of early bilin-
gual development. Based on available research fndings with typically developing infants
and toddlers, speech-language pathologists and other professionals who work with bilingual
infants and young children should consider the following points regarding practice.
1. Bilingual infants can perceptually separate their languages from birth. Clinicians do
not need to advise parents to use a one-parent, one-language strategy because infants
can use several diferent cues to learn separate language systems.
2. Tere is no such thing as a prelinguistic infant. From their frst moments of life,
infants use low-level basic computational abilities to gradually build a language system,
and in both monolingual and bilingual children these early domain-general abilities
are continuous with later language acquisition. Infants provided with naturalistic lan-
guage input from birth can further develop the basic learning mechanisms needed to
acquire other aspects of language. Attention to these basic abilities may facilitate earlier
detection of language-learning disorders.
3. Early bilingualism is characterized by large variability; there is no single bilingual
pattern of development. Practitioners should be careful about generalizing the fnd-
ings from bilingual children from one community to bilingual children from another
community. Te unique linguistic properties of each language, typological distances
between languages, and sociolinguistic diferences in how languages are used with
infants and young children can all infuence language processing.
4. Children begin life with mechanisms for fnding patterns in their input languages
and develop strategies for language learning based on the statistical distributions of
speech sounds, rhythmic patterns, and other properties of their languages. At young
ages, infants can detect mispronunciations of words that they have already encoded in
memory. Well-intentioned eforts to conduct assessment and intervention in a childs
language may fall short when the practitioner is not highly profcient in that language.
66 Conboy
When very young children are provided with language input that does not match the
prosody or segmental features they are used to hearing, their ability to process such
input may be compromised. Moreover, disruptions to the normal prosody and other
phonological features of language may disrupt childrens ability to segment words from
connected speech. One way out of this quandary is for clinicians who lack high levels
of profciency in a clients language or dialect to involve caregivers in assessment and
intervention and to encourage caregivers to use the language in which they speak most
naturally.
5. Practitioners should not underestimate the impact that small amounts of second lan-
guage exposure can have on language perception and production. Research reviewed
in this chapter has shown that infants as young as 910 months of age show changes in
perception and in their vocalizations afer as little as 5 hours of naturalistic exposure to
a second language. When interviewing families about language use for the purpose of
selecting assessment measures, practitioners should be careful to consider all forms of
regular exposure to another language.
6. Social contexts and interactions are crucial for early language development. Practi-
tioners must carefully consider the contexts in which they observe language skills in
infants, consider the sources of language input, and obtain communication samples
during socially interactive situations. When practitioners attempt to involve childrens
caregivers in intervention, they should encourage caregivers to interact in ways that are
socially and culturally appropriate, to provide the most naturalistic learning situation
possible.
7. Processing ef ciency is as important for language functioning as knowledge of lan-
guage forms. Research reviewed in this chapter has indicated that for bilingual infants
and toddlers, processing ef ciency is linked to experience in each separate language.
Clinical tools for measuring processing ef ciency could provide useful clinical infor-
mation. Diferences between typically developing infants and those with language
disorders may be most noticeable when language processing (i.e., perception and speed
of retrieval), rather than production, is examined and therefore may be invisible to
practitioners who do not have access to reliable procedures for assessing childrens
processing skills.
8. Children who have learned two languages from birth are native users of each language,
but they are not monolingual users of either language because their bilingual language-
learning situation has produced unique ways of processing language that are evident
even in the earliest stages of development. Tough there are many similarities between
bilingual and monolingual development, the cognitive abilities that support the learn-
ing of any particular language develop within sociocultural communicative contexts
and are shaped by the demand for particular behaviors within those contexts. Tus,
bilingual children should not be compared to monolingual standards, even during the
earliest stages of language acquisition. Diferences between bilingual and monolingual
children refect appropriate responses to properties of the input rather than a delay
induced by bilingualism. Practitioners should remember that the term delay connotes
a defcit view of bilingualism and is not an accurate way of describing the unique pat-
terns associated with early bilingualism. In fact, the term could equally accurately be
Language Processing and Production 67
applied to monolingualism, given that some of the research reviewed in this chapter
has shown that bilingual infants and toddlers outperform their monolingual peers on
certain tasks. Over and over, testing paradigms have shown that bilingual infants can-
not do certain things that monolingual infants can do at the same ages, but when other
testing paradigms are used, bilinguals succeed and sometimes outperform their mono-
lingual peers.
Unfortunately, few commercial tools both developed and normed with bilingual
populations are available to clinicians. Clinicians working with EnglishSpanish bilingual
infants and toddlers may use tools developed for monolingual infants and toddlers, such as
the English and Spanish versions of the MacArthur-Bates CDI (Fenson et al., 2006; Jackson-
Maldonado et al., 2003), but should do so cautiously. Although these inventories have not
been normed on bilingual infants, studies have shown that they validly and reliably meas-
ure early vocabulary size and other language skills in young bilingual children (Marchman
& Martnez-Sussmann, 2002). Further research is needed to determine the long-term pre-
dictive validity of such measures and norms for bilingual infants and toddlers.
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[AU1]Tis URL still doesnt work. Is there a better way to access this info?