Babies’ Early Language Development (Version 01)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Early language development under difficult circumstances: Exploring maturational and environmental factors
IRAS ID
187685
Contact name
Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Oxford Brookes University
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 31 days
Research summary
Learning a language is an incredibly complex task that infants achieve almost effortlessly, at an amazing speed and impressive success rate. However, sometimes the circumstances in which this complex task is mastered are far from ideal: for example, for babies born preterm or born into a disadvantaged family, which raises the important question of what happens to the ability to learn a language under difficult circumstances.
The proposed research aims to find out to what extent early language development is affected by maturational and environmental factors. To do this, infants’ phonological development will be investigated in two key populations showing maturational or environmental differences: infants born preterm and infants from lower-socio-economic status families. Testing these two populations can shed complementary light on early language acquisition. Phonological development has been chosen as this is one of the earliest stages in language development in which key skills for later stages are mastered. These include the acquisition of different properties of a given language such as the rhythm, the sounds and way that sounds can be combined. All these properties are crucial for identifying and learning new words.
REC name
South Central - Hampshire B Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/SC/0762
Date of REC Opinion
17 Dec 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion