ABSTRACT

The research of Janet Werker has provided us with a rich body of data on how experience with the parental language alters our initial capacities to perceive the sounds of speech. Her writings and presentation have made it clear that if we are to understand the effects of linguistic experience, we must consider the specific acoustic information that is or is not experienced, as well as how acoustic information is used linguistically by the parental language. This is to say that we must recognize that the effects on perception of our earliest experience with language may have both auditory and linguistic origins.