ABSTRACT
Sensitivity to the sounds and sound structures of the native language begins early in development, with influences from the ambient linguistic environment beginning even before birth. In this chapter, we review the current state of research on phonological development in infancy, focusing on how the perception, understanding and knowledge of the sounds of language become increasingly tuned to the properties of the native language over the first years of life. We first briefly note the range of theoretical approaches to phonological development that exist, and then describe in more depth the approaches that have guided empirical work. We next highlight research on speech sound discrimination, phonotactics, word recognition and word learning, as well as explain several of the common research methods used to examine phonological learning in infants and children. Finally, we discuss the implications for educators, parents and clinicians, as well as some future directions for the field. Throughout the chapter we consider both language comprehension and language production, arguing that, to get a full picture of phonological development, both aspects of language must be viewed in tandem.
