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Infant Phoneme Discrimination and Perceptual Narrowing

Infants begin life with the remarkable ability to distinguish between the phonetic sounds of all human languages, effectively acting as 'universal listeners.' This broad perceptual capacity narrows within their first year. By approximately 12 months of age, their auditory perception becomes specialized, and they primarily discriminate only among the phonemes present in the language or languages they are regularly exposed to in their environment.

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Updated 2026-05-01

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