Question

Three of the following statements about infants' early listening abilities are true. Which one is false?

1. By 9 months of age, infants prefer hearing the language of their own culture rather than the language of other groups.
2. Newborn babies show no preference in listening to languages.
3. By 5 months of age, infants show some partiality to their own name when they hear it in speech.
4. By 2 years of age, toddlers have difficulty hearing subtle differences in speech that are not important in their native language.

Answer 1

The false statement is:

2. Newborn babies show no preference in listening to languages.

Newborn babies do show a preference in listening to languages. Research has shown that infants as young as a few days old display a preference for their mother’s voice and the rhythmic patterns of their native language. They can discriminate between different languages and show a preference for the sounds and intonation patterns of their own language.

Answer 2

The false statement is that newborn babies show no preference in listening to languages. Research demonstrates that newborns do indeed prefer their mother's voice over others and can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar languages. By the age of 9 months, infants prefer their own culture's language, and by age 2, they begin to lose the ability to perceive sounds not used in their native language.

Step-by-step explanation:

Infants' Early Listening Abilities

Exploring the early listening abilities of infants reveals that they have remarkable capacities even from a very young age. The false statement among those provided is that newborn babies show no preference in listening to languages. Research indicates that even prior to birth, infants are attuned to their mother's voice and can differentiate between their mother's language and unfamiliar languages. At about 5 months of age, infants begin to show a preference for their own name. By 9 months, they prefer the language of their own culture, and by 2 years of age, their ability to perceive phonetic nuances becomes specialized to their native language, making it harder to detect differences in languages not spoken within their environment.

It is important to correct the misstatement that newborns show no preference for language, as studies have shown that they respond more to their mother's voice than to a stranger's voice and can discriminate between languages from a very young age. By 5 months, babies also typically show recognition of their own name. As they reach the age of 9 months, they show preferences for linguistic inputs from their own culture. However, by 2 years old, toddlers may have difficulty discerning subtle phonetic differences in languages not regularly encountered, demonstrating a refined tuning to the sounds of their native language.