Perceiving Language Sounds and Structure During Infancy

Infants are born with the ability to hear and differentiate between many speech sounds from different languages.

Exposure to these sound patterns of language can begin before birth and continue after birth.

Newborns exposed to two languages during pregnancy can differentiate between the two languages and respond differently to their rhythms and sound patterns.

Between 6 and 7 months of age, infants become better at recognizing the phonemes, or smallest speech sounds, used in the language they hear most often.

By about 8 months, sensitivity to speech sounds that are not part of the language or languages they hear most often begins to decrease.

Between 6 and 12 months, infants also learn the sound rules that control how phonemes can be combined to form words.

At the same time, they begin to recognize basic patterns of sentence structure and speech rhythm.

As infants hear more speech, they begin to recognize familiar sound patterns, including their own name and common words.

They also learn to recognize syllable combinations, word stress, and pitch changes.