Article Link: http://www.exchangepress.com/article/young-bilingual-children-navigating-languages-bridging-research-and-practice/5026620/
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Bridging Research and Practice
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Human beings are “wired” for language, and children have an innate ability to master the oral languages around them without any formal lessons from an adult (Pinker, 1994; Kuhl, 2011). Throughout human history, we underestimated what infants can perceive and process in their minds, and wrongly assumed that they cannot understand language at such a young age. Today, we know that language development begins in utero when the auditory system begins to develop first in the brain (Morrongiello, Fenwich, Hillier, & Chance, 1994). A baby picks up on the sounds of human voices while in the mother’s ...