Non-word repetition tasks are widely used to assess phonological short-term memory (PSTM). Results of previous research on the performance of monolingual and bilingual children in PSTM tasks are inconclusive. Although in some studies bilinguals did outperform monolinguals in the repetition of non-words, most studies reported comparatively weak…

One of the first challenges facing the young language learner is the task of segmenting words from a natural language speech stream, without prior knowledge of how these words sound. Studies with younger children find that children find it easier to segment words from fluent speech when the words are presented in infant-directed speech, i.e., the…

In the current study we investigate whether 2- and 3-year-old German children use intonation productively to mark the informational status of referents. Using a story-telling task, we compared children's and adults' intonational realization via pitch accent (H*, L* and de-accentuation) of New, Given, and Contrastive referents. Both children and…