Reports on two studies on the acquisition by children of the voicing contrast in Mexican Spanish word-initial stops. The first was a longitudinal study. One analysis showed children unable to distinguish between voiced-voiceless stop cognate pairs at age 3;10. A spirantization analysis, however, more clearly revealed the children's phonological…

Reports on a longitudinal study of the acquisition of the voicing contrast in American English word-initial stop consonants as measured by voice-onset time. The rate and nature of the developmental process are discussed in relation to two competing models of phonological acquisition and two hypotheses regarding the skills being learned. (Author/AM)

This paper reports on a longitudinal study of the acquisition of the voicing contrast in English word-initial stop consonants, as measured by voice onset time. Four monolingual children were recorded at two week intervals, beginning when the children were about 1;6. Data provided evidence for three general stages: (1) the child has no contrast;…

This paper reports on a longitudinal study of the acquisition of the voicing contrast in American-English work-initial stop consonants, as revealed through instrumental analysis of voice onset time characteristics. Four monolingual children were recorded at approximately two week intervals, beginning when the children were about 1;6. Data provide…

Several studies have begun to investigate the claim that children can make most phonological discriminations when they begin to speak. This paper investigates how well children aged 2;3 to 2;11 can discriminate between pairs of minimally different real words, and it shows that the results are affected by how well the children know the words. It is…