Phonological Feature Abstraction Before 6 Months: Amodal Recognition of Place of Articulation Across Multiple Consonants.

The classical view is that perceptual attunement to the native language, which emerges by 6-10 months, developmentally precedes phonological feature abstraction abilities. That assumption is challenged by findings from adults adopted into a new language environment at 3-5 months that imply they had already formed phonological feature abstractions about their birth language prior to 6 months. As phonological feature abstraction had not been directly tested in infants, we examined 4-6-month-olds' amodal abstraction of the labial versus coronal place of articulation distinction between consonants.

Maternal input, not transient elevated depression and anxiety symptoms, predicts 2-year-olds' vocabulary development.

Both the quantity and quality of the maternal language input are important for early language development. However, depression and anxiety can negatively impact mothers' engagement with their infants and their infants' expressive language abilities. Australian mother-infant dyads ( = 30) participated in a longitudinal study examining the effect of maternal language input when infants were 24 and 30 months and maternal depression and anxiety symptoms on vocabulary size.

Endocrine disorders in Kearns-Sayre syndrome with different severity of symptoms: two case reports and a literature review.

Kearns-Sayre Syndrome (KSS) is a variant of mitochondrial disorder caused by a Mitochondrial Deoxyribonucleic Acid (mtDNA) deletion. Clinical manifestations of KSS can include different organ and system involvement. Different organ malfunctions, more often cardiac dysfunction, can lead to death.

Shaping linguistic input in parent-infant interactions: The influence of the Infant's temperament.

Parent-infant interactions highlight the role of parental input, considering both the quality, infant-directed speech, and quantity of interactions, adult words and communicative turns, in these interactions. However, communication is bidirectional, yet little is known about the infant's role in these interactions. This study (n = 35 4-month-old infants) explores how infant-directed speech, the number of adult words and turn-taking (both measured by the LENA system) are correlated with infants' temperament.