The maluma/takete effect is late: No longitudinal evidence for shape sound symbolism in the first year.

The maluma/takete effect refers to an association between certain language sounds (e.g., /m/ and /o/) and round shapes, and other language sounds (e.

Utterance-Initial Prosodic Differences Between Statements and Questions in Infant-Directed Speech.

Cross-linguistically, statements and questions broadly differ in syntactic organization. To learn the syntactic properties of each sentence type, learners might first rely on non-syntactic information. This paper analyzed prosodic differences between infant-directed -questions and statements to determine what kinds of cues might be available.

Trajectories of Vocabulary Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Across Multiple Measures.

This longitudinal study examined how receptive and expressive vocabulary assessments capture vocabulary development in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children. Using mixed regression modelling, we explored when children with ASD significantly different from TD children. We also examined the variability of individual trajectories of vocabulary development in children with ASD.

Boosting the input: 9-month-olds' sensitivity to low-frequency phonotactic patterns in novel wordforms.

To learn their first words, infants must attend to a variety of cues that signal word boundaries. One such cue infants might use is the language-specific phonotactics to track legal combinations and positions of segments within a word. Studies have demonstrated that, when tested across statistically high and low phonotactics, infants repeatedly reject the low-frequency wordforms.

Eleven-Month-Olds Link Sound Properties With Animal Categories.

We examined 11-month-olds' tendency to generalize properties to category members, an ability that may contribute to the inductive reasoning abilities observed in later developmental periods. Across three experiments, we tested 11-month-olds' ( = 113) generalization of properties within the cat and dog categories. In each experiment, infants were familiarized to animal-sound pairings (i.

Developmental Trajectories of Infants With Multiplex Family Risk for Autism: A Baby Siblings Research Consortium Study.

Importance: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with different genetic etiologies. Prospective examination of familial-risk infants informs understanding of developmental trajectories preceding ASD diagnosis, potentially improving early detection.

Objective: To compare outcomes and trajectories associated with varying familial risk for ASD across the first 3 years of life.

Does an Early Speech Preference Predict Linguistic and Social-Pragmatic Attention in Infants Displaying and Not Displaying Later ASD Symptoms?

Human infants show a robust preference for speech over many other sounds, helping them learn language and interact with others. Lacking a preference for speech may underlie some language and social-pragmatic difficulties in children with ASD. But, it's unclear how an early speech preference supports later language and social-pragmatic abilities.

Early motor abilities in infants at heightened versus low risk for ASD: A Baby Siblings Research Consortium (BSRC) study.

Research has identified early appearing differences in gross and fine motor abilities in infants at heightened risk (HR) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) because they are the younger siblings of children with ASD, and it suggests that such differences may be especially apparent among those HR infants themselves eventually diagnosed with ASD. The present study examined overall and item-level performance on the gross (GM) and fine motor (FM) subscales of the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) administered at 6 months to a large, geographically diverse sample of HR infants with varying developmental outcomes (ASD, elevated ADOS without ASD, low ADOS without ASD) and to infants with low ASD risk (low risk [LR]). We also explored whether motor abilities assessed at 6 months predicted ASD symptom severity at 36 months.

Word Level Stress and Lexical Processing in 17-Month-Old Infants.

Detailed representations enable infants to distinguish words from one another and more easily recognize new words. We examined whether 17-month-old infants encode word stress in their familiar word representations. In Experiment 1, infants were presented with pairs of familiar objects while hearing a target label either properly pronounced with the correct stress (e.

Not speaking the same language: 17-month-olds shift their perception of novel labels following brief exposure to non-native language.

We examined if and when English-learning 17-month-olds would accommodate Japanese forms as labels for novel objects. In Experiment 1, infants (n = 22) who were habituated to Japanese word-object pairs looked longer at switched test pairs than familiar test pairs, suggesting that they had mapped Japanese word forms to objects. In Experiments 2 (n = 44) and 3 (n = 22), infants were presented with a spoken passage prior to habituation to assess whether experience with a different language would shift their perception of Japanese word forms.

Shifting Preferences for Primate Faces in Neurotypical Infants and Infants Later Diagnosed With ASD.

Infants look at others' faces to gather social information. Newborns look equally at human and monkey faces but prefer human faces by 1 month, helping them learn to communicate and interact with others. Infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) look at human faces less than neurotypical infants, which may underlie some deficits in social-communication later in life.

Preference for speech in infancy differentially predicts language skills and autism-like behaviors.

Early emerging biases for conspecific vocalizations are a hallmark of early development. Typically developing neonates listen to speech more than many other sounds, including non-biological non-speech sounds, but listen equally to speech and monkey calls. By 3 months of age, however, infants prefer speech over both non-biological non-speech sounds and monkey calls.

Fourteen-month-olds' sensitivity to acoustic salience in minimal pair word learning.

During the first two years of life, infants concurrently refine native-language speech categories and word learning skills. However, in the Switch Task, 14-month-olds do not detect minimal contrasts in a novel object-word pairing (Stager & Werker, 1997). We investigate whether presenting infants with acoustically salient contrasts (liquids) facilitates success in the Switch Task.

Does lexical stress influence 17-month-olds' mapping of verbs and nouns?

English-learning infants attend to lexical stress when learning new words. Attention to lexical stress might be beneficial for word learning by providing an indication of the grammatical class of that word. English disyllabic nouns commonly have trochaic (strong-weak) stress, whereas English disyllabic verbs commonly have iambic (weak-strong) stress.

Non-ASD outcomes at 36 months in siblings at familial risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD): A baby siblings research consortium (BSRC) study.

We characterized developmental outcomes of a large sample of siblings at familial high-risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who themselves did not have ASD (n = 859), and low-risk controls with no family history of ASD (n = 473). We report outcomes at age 3 years using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) and adaptive functioning on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. Around 11% of high-risk siblings had mild-to-moderate levels of developmental delay, a rate higher than the low-risk controls.

Commentary: sex difference differences? A reply to Constantino.

Messinger et al. found a 3.18 odds ratio of male to female ASD recurrence in 1241 prospectively followed high-risk (HR) siblings.

Nine-month-olds use frequency of onset clusters to segment novel words.

Before their first birthday, infants have started to identify and use information about their native language, such as frequent words, transitional probabilities, and co-occurrence of segments (phonotactics), to identify viable word boundaries. These cues can then be used to segment new words from running speech. We explored whether infants are capable of detecting a novel word form using the frequency of occurrence of the onset alone to further characterize the role of phonotactics in speech segmentation.

Infants' acceptance of phonotactically illegal word forms as object labels.

We investigated 16- and 20-month-olds' flexibility in mapping phonotactically illegal words to objects. Using an associative word-learning task, infants were presented with a training phase that either highlighted or did not highlight the referential status of a novel label. Infants were then habituated to two novel objects, each paired with a phonotactically illegal Czech word.

Language Differences at 12 Months in Infants Who Develop Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Little is known about early language development in infants who later develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We analyzed prospective data from 346 infants, some of whom were at high risk for developing ASD, to determine if language differences could be detected at 12 months of age in the infants who later were diagnosed with ASD. Analyses revealed lower receptive and expressive language scores in infants who later were diagnosed with ASD.

Understanding the developing sound system: interactions between sounds and words.

Unlabelled: Over the course of the first 2 years of life, infants are learning a great deal about the sound system of their native language. Acquiring the sound system requires the infant to learn about sounds and their distributions, sound combinations, and prosodic information, such as syllables, rhythm, and stress. These aspects of the phonological system are being learned simultaneously as the infant experiences the language around him or her.

Early sex differences are not autism-specific: A Baby Siblings Research Consortium (BSRC) study.

Background: The increased male prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be mirrored by the early emergence of sex differences in ASD symptoms and cognitive functioning. The female protective effect hypothesis posits that ASD recurrence and symptoms will be higher among relatives of female probands. This study examined sex differences and sex of proband differences in ASD outcome and in the development of ASD symptoms and cognitive functioning among the high-risk younger siblings of ASD probands and low-risk children.

Foundational tuning: how infants' attention to speech predicts language development.

Orienting biases for speech may provide a foundation for language development. Although human infants show a bias for listening to speech from birth, the relation of a speech bias to later language development has not been established. Here, we examine whether infants' attention to speech directly predicts expressive vocabulary.

Attention to lexical stress and early vocabulary growth in 5-month-olds at risk for autism spectrum disorder.

Typically developing infants differentiate strong-weak (trochaic) and weak-strong (iambic) stress patterns by 2months of age. The ability to discriminate rhythmical patterns, such as lexical stress, has been argued to facilitate language development, suggesting that a difficulty in discriminating stress might affect early word learning as reflected in vocabulary size. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty in correctly producing lexical stress, yet little is known about how they perceive it.