Running head: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN INFANCY: A LITERATURE REVIEW 1

Language Acquisition in Infancy: A Literature Review

Cristina Montagna

Long Island University POST

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN INFANCY: A LITERATURE REVIEW 2

Kuhl, P. K., Stevens, E., Hayashi, A., Deguchi, T., Kiritani, S., & Iverson, P. (2006).  Infants

show a facilitation effect for native language phonetic perception between 6 and 12

months. Developmental Science, 9(2), 13–21. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00468.x

According to Kuhl et al. (2006) from birth until six months of age, infants recognize

when sounds change, no matter what language the syllables come from.  But over the next six

months infants get even better at perceiving the changes in sounds from their native language

and gradually lose the ability to recognize differences in sounds that are not important in their

native language (p. 13).  Their 2006 seminal study supports this claim.  

In their study, 62 infants (32 American, and 32 Japanese) six through twelve months old,

listen to tape-recorded voices that repeat the English syllables /r/ and /l/, the distinctions between

which are native to the English language, but nonnative to the Japanese language (p. 15).  When

sounds of the recorded syllables change between /r/ and /l/, the American infants turn their heads

toward the speaker, indicating  perception of change in sound in their native language, whereas

the Japanese infants do not turn their heads, indicating no perception of change in sound in their

nonnative language.  The present results are consistent with the view that exposure to a specific

language causes neural commitment to the properties of native-language phonetic units, and that

this learning process plays a role in the decline of nonnative phonetic perception (p. 19).

This study has been reviewed because it supports how language develops in infants,

beginning with recognizing language sounds, a primary milestone in language development. It

equally supports an interactionist view of how biology and experience influence language

development in infants.  For instance, the data from this study supports Kuhl’s theoretical model

Native Language Magnet-expanded (NLM-e), which argues that an implicit learning process

(experience) commits the brain’s neural circuitry (biology) to the properties of native-language
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN INFANCY: A LITERATURE REVIEW 3

speech (p. 13).  As this early language development is influenced by experiences (nurture),

within the child’s early education, it supports the potential for early language  interventions (e.g.,

talking to children early in life, reading to them early in life, and interacting socially with

children around language and literacy activities) which creates the milieu in which plasticity

during infancy can be maximized for all children.

Masapollo, M., Polka, L., & Menard, L. (2016).  When infants talk, infants listen: pre-babbling

infants prefer listening to speech with infant vocal properties. Developmental Science,

19(2), 318-328.  doi: 10.1111/desc.12298

Long before infants speak recognizable words, they produce a number of vocalizations,

including babbling.  According to Masapollo et al. (2016), for infants to learn to produce speech,

they must effectively monitor and assess their own self-generated speech (i.e., babbling). 

According to an interactionist view, this self-generated speech is influenced by the infant’s (a)

neuro-motor ability to produce language sounds, and (b) exposure to their native language,

typically through Infant Directed Speech (IDS) (p. 325).  

In their study,  Masapollo et al. investigate whether pre-babbling infants display a

perceptual bias for listening to infant vowel sounds over adult vowel sounds engaged in IDS (p.

321).  In their study, 20 American infants four through six months old, listen to tape-recorded

voices, of infants and adults, that repeat the English syllable /i/.  When sounds of the recorded

syllables change between infant and adult sounds, the infants turn their heads toward the speaker

and listen longer, when hearing infant vowel sounds.  These findings provide the first evidence

that young infants display a perceptual bias favoring vowels that have the vocal characteristics

(i.e., pitch) of an infant talker (p.325).

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Babies go through the following vocalization sequence during the first year — crying,

cooing, then babbling (i.e., strings of consonant-vowel combinations). Therefore, this study has

been reviewed because it supports how language develops in infants, with babbling, as a

beginning milestone in language development.  Of further significance are the theoretical

implications of this study’s findings on the role of IDS and how it acoustically parallels infant

speech.  This parallel supports an interpretation of IDS as phonetic convergence (i.e., increase in

similarity in a dyad's speech patterns due to an interaction).  Phonetic convergence in caregiver–

infant interaction likely conveys positive regard as it does in adult-to-adult interactions, and may

be linked with the social learning process of infant speech, which implies the early need for

positive language interactions with infants (p. 325). 

Colonnesi, C.,  Jan, G., Stams, J. M., Koster, I., Noom, M. J. (2010). The relation between

pointing and language development: A meta-analysis. Developmental Review, 30(4),

352–366. doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2010.10.001

Colonnesi et al.’s (2010) meta-analysis investigates twenty-five studies (13 in

North America and 12 in Europe), conducted between 1978 and 2009, involving 734 infants, that

examine the relation between the pointing gesture and language.  The meta-analysis suggests that

the pointing gesture, as a joint-attentional behavior, is the first form of referential and intentional

(non-linguistic) communication that is associated with language development (p. 361).  It also

finds that: (a) with increasing age the production and understanding of the pointing gesture

becomes more related and integrated with the use of language, and (b) children who are better

able to recognize the connection between the action of pointing and the target object are later on

also better in word comprehension and production (p. 362). 

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This study has been reviewed because it supports how language develops in infants, with

gesturing (pointing), representing a beginning milestone in (non-linguistic) language

development.  The results of the meta-analysis highlight the importance of pointing as a relevant

index of the social aspects of language, following the developmental sequence: from pointing

without checking on adult gaze, to pointing while looking back and forth between an object and

an adult (p. 365).  In terms of early educational implications, failure to reach this developmental

milestone (i.e., engage in pointing) is a significant indicator of problems in the infant’s

communication system.

McGillion, M., Pine, J., Herbert, J. S., Vihman, M., Keren-Portnoy, T.,  dePaolis, R., Matthews,

D. (2017). What paves the way to conventional language? The predictive value of babble,

pointing, and socioeconomic status. Child Development, 88(1), 156–166. doi:

10.1111/cdev.12671

One of the most important ways to communicate during infancy is by using gestures, in

particular, index-finger pointing (McGillion et al., 2017).  Although a number of studies

investigate the emergence and use of pointing and language during infancy, it is still not clear

whether this gesture only precedes language development or whether it also contributes to it. 

Therefore, the objective of McGillion et al.’s study is to establish whether early gestural (i.e.,

index-finger pointing) or vocal behaviors (i.e., babbling) are more important for predicting the

onset of word production (first words) (p. 157). 

To achieve this, the researchers analyze a densely sampled set of video recordings of 46

infants, of English speaking families, interacting in naturalistic play sessions with their primary

caregiver between the ages of 9 and 18 months, observing the onset of the infants’ babbling,

pointing, and first words.  The study found that babbling develops independently of pointing, and
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN INFANCY: A LITERATURE REVIEW 6

that babbling (along with maternal education) is a significant predictor of the age at which

infants began to produce their first words, as opposed to pointing (p. 160).  These findings

suggest that phonological readiness (i.e., the ability to perceive and produce the component

speech sounds of one’s native language) is more important for the transition to word production

than previously recognized (p. 163). 

This study has been reviewed because it supports how language develops in infants, with

vocalizations (babbling), gesturing (pointing), and first words, representing beginning milestones

in language development.  This study also supports an interactionist view of how biology and

experience influence language development in infants, as phonological readiness (i.e., neuro-

motor ability to perceive and produce speech sounds) is influenced by the infants’ experiences

with their native language.  As such, early education implications for infants highlight the

importance of the infant-caregiver dyad, as the caregiver's mode of interaction may be

responsible for any observed relations between babbling and the onset of word production (p.

163).

Fernald, A., Marchman, V. A.,  & Weisleder, A. (2013). SES differences in language processing

skill and vocabulary are evident at 18 months. Developmental Science 16(2), 234–248.

doi: 10.1111/desc.12019 

In Fernald et al.’s (2013) study, the researchers explore the differences in early language

proficiency (i.e., receptive vocabulary learning) among children from higher- and lower-

socioeconomic status (SES) families.  In their looking-while-listening (LWL) procedure, the

researchers display two pictures of familiar objects to 48 infants (from English-speaking

homes),  as they listen to speech naming one of the objects (p. 239).  Coders then indicate

whether the infant is looking at the left picture or right picture, to decipher the infant’s spoken
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN INFANCY: A LITERATURE REVIEW 7

word recognition.  These trials are conducted first at 18 months of age, and then again at 24

months of age.  The study’s findings show that children in the Higher-SES group are

significantly more advanced in receptive vocabulary (i.e., spoken word recognition) than those in

the Lower- SES group, with 24-month-olds in the Lower- SES sample performing at the same

level overall as 18-month-olds do in the Higher-SES group, exhibiting a 6-month gap between

the two groups (p. 240).

According to Fernald et al., there are many different experiential factors associated with

living in poverty that could contribute to variability in language learning (e.g., access to

resources, adequate nutrition, medical care, and environmental safety; factors of instability and

familial stress; and the quality of parent-infant interactions) (p. 244).   This study has been

reviewed because it supports how experiential factors (of SES) influence language (vocabulary)

development in infants, exhibiting how differences in SES are strongly associated with variation

in language outcomes (p. 234).  The disparities in vocabulary proficiency (between SES groups)

have serious implications for the infants’ long-term developmental trajectories given that

differences among children in trajectories of language growth established by 3 years of age tend

to persist and are predictive of later school success or failure (p. 240).   From an interactionist

perspective (i.e., the interplay between biology and experience), there is consensus that infants’

genetic potentials in the domain of vocal development can only be realized with appropriate

environmental support (p. 243).  Thus, from a policy perspective, there is a need to frame the

discoveries of this study, as a public health message, with the goal of helping caregivers and

service providers understand the crucial role they can play in enabling infants to build and

strengthen skills essential for optimal development.