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The development of consonant and lexical-tone discrimination between 3 and 6 years: Effect of language exposure

Aims and objectives: The present study explored children’s discrimination capacities for lexical tones and consonants between 3 and 6 years of age and the effect of native language on this ability. Recent studies in infants have shown a perceptual rebound for non-native listeners during the second year of life, but only for lexical tones. However, the later stages of development, and particularly when children start pre-school, are yet not clear. Design: Discrimination abilities of 134 children were measured in three age groups between 3 and 6 years using a behavioural task where children detected a change in lexical tones or consonants. Children were either French monolinguals, French bilinguals exposed to an Asian tone language or French bilinguals exposed to a second non-tone language at home. Data and analysis: Overall, results indicated that higher detection scores for consonants were observed from 4 to 5 years, while for lexical tones the highest scores were observed only at 5–6 years. Moreover, bilingual children exposed to an Asian tone language had higher scores for tones compared to monolingual French children. Interestingly, both bilingual groups, whether exposed to an Asian tone language or to a non-tone language, had better scores for tones than for French consonants, while monolinguals performed equally with both. Conclusions: Language exposure from an early age influences phonological development and bilingualism seems to enhance the perception of prosodic information. Originality: This study is the first to show a different developmental trajectory for consonant and lexical-tone discrimination between 3 and 6 years according to the native language. Significance: Similar detection scores for tones and consonants for monolingual French children and better detection for tones than for consonants for both groups of bilinguals suggest that the perception of lexical tone is determined by both language-specific influences and non-linguistic/auditory processing during childhood.