Language Development in the First Few Years of Life

Harvard FAS

How do infants first learn the sounds that make up their native language? By what process do babies begin to understand and assign meaning to words? What allows young children to intuitively grasp the complex rules of grammar? This course will explore these questions and more as we delve into the fascinating research on one of the fundamentally unique abilities of our species: learning language. Since young children understand more than they can say, we will also cover how researchers figure…