Abstract
Children's songs often contain rhyming words at phrase endings. In this study, we investigated whether infants can already recognize this phonological pattern in songs. Earlier studies using lists of spoken words were equivocal on infants' spontaneous processing of rhymes (Hayes et al., 2000; Jusczyk et al., 1999). Songs, however, constitute an ecologically valid rhyming stimulus, which could allow for spontaneous processing of this phonological pattern in infants. Novel children's songs with rhyming and non-rhyming lyrics using pseudo-words were presented to 35 9-month-old Dutch infants using the Headturn Preference Procedure. Infants on average listened longer to the non-rhyming songs, with around half of the infants however exhibiting a preference for the rhyming songs. These results highlight that infants have the processing abilities to benefit from their natural rhyming input for the development of their phonological abilities.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 130-139 |
| Journal | Infant Behavior and Development: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal |
| Volume | 52 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2018 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Infant-directed song
- Rhyme
- Spontaneous processing
- PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
- NURSERY RHYMES
- LANGUAGE
- SPEECH
- RECOGNITION
- PATTERNS
- MOTHERS
- DETAIL
- MELODY
- WORDS