Article Review. Strengths and Weaknesses. Point of Interest

Article Review
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Article Review
Infants are biologically prepared to acquire language, but scholars argue that they must first learn the native language(s). During the first moments of their lives, infants are able to understand the first sights and sounds of their native language, and this perceptual knowledge is used in pulling out words and their newest version of grammar (Werker, 2012).
Summary
In the article entitled Perceptual Foundations of Bilingual Acquisition in Infancy, Janet Werker argues that language acquisition is one of the most outstanding aspects associated with human development. By the age of six months, children have the capacity of understanding certain words, and will normally manage to mention their first word before they reach twelve months, after which they will proceed to language proficiency (Werker, 2012). Learning of perceptual attributes of the native language plays a critical role in enabling infants to acquire their first language. Sensitivity to the language rhythm enables bilingual infants to evaluate and understand the basic word order of a language, with the canonical forms that are most common being subject-verb-object (SVO) and subject-object-verb (SOV).
Huge amount of evidence has revealed that perceptual biases among birth infants tend to orient them to language and this impacts on their ability acquire language. It also provides them with the ability to discriminate the particulate constituents and cognitive machinery to understand he regularities and rules of the language which they have been exposed to. Bilingual language acquisition has similar milestones as those associated to the acquisition of the first language. Evidence also suggests that native language properties are usually present after birth, ostensibly prenatal or after exposure to postnatal environment (Werker, 2012). Afterwards toddlers become more proficient in understanding and processing optimally the native language properties. They will also be less sensitive to issues and variations that are not significant in understanding the native language. Therefore, more research studies are needed to effectively understand the techniques of changing perceptual sensitivities as well as the operations of the learning machinery in relations to native language acquisition.
To examine language discrimination among bilingual infants using visual information, Werker (2012) recorded three females who were bilingual as they recited sentences from a storybook for children. Monolingual infants aged four, six and eight months were then presented with these recitals in a discrimination paradigm after turning off the sounds. The results revealed that the monolingual Engli...