Phonological Learning By Children and Adults in a Laboratory Setting

Abstract

Adults and 7-year-old children were compared in their ability to acquire new speech sound patterns under conditions of equal exposure. Thirty-two non-Spanish speaking subjects imitated Spanish words that had been recorded by a native speaker of Spanish, and read other words designed to assess their knowledge of Spanish stress patterns. Performance of the children in imitating the Spanish words excelled that of adults. No differences were found in the degree to which adults and children generalized Spanish stress patterns to unpresented words, but children showed less interference from English stress patterns than did adults.