Word learning and phonetic processing in preschool-age children

Consonants and vowels have been shown to play different relative roles in different processes including retrieving known words from pseudowords during adulthood or simultaneously learning two phonetically similar pseudowords during infancy or toddlerhood The current study explores the extent to which French-speaking 3- to 5-year-olds exhibit a so-called consonant bias in a task simulating word acquisition that is when learning new words for unfamiliar objects In Experiment 1 the to-be-learned words differed both by a consonant and a vowel (e g /byf/-/duf/) and children needed to choose which of the two objects to associate with a third one whose name differed from both objects by either a consonant or a vowel (e g /dyf/) In such a conflict condition children needed to favor (or neglect) either consonant information or vowel information The results show that only 3-year-olds preferentially chose the consonant identity thereby neglecting the vowel change The older children (and adults) did not exhibit any response bias In Experiment 2 children needed to pick up one of two objects whose names differed on either consonant information or vowel information Whereas 3-year-olds performed better with pairs of pseudowords contrasting on consonants the pattern of asymmetry was reversed in 4-year-olds and 5 year-olds did not exhibit any significant response bias Interestingly girls showed overall better performance and exhibited earlier changes in performance than boys The changes in consonant/vowel asymmetry in preschoolers are discussed in relation with developments in linguistic (lexical and morphosyntactic) and cognitive processing (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved