Emergence Approach to Speech Acquisition

Barbara L. Davis is the Houston Harte Centennial professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She has pursued a research program centered on understanding speech acquisition through cross-linguistic analysis of child speech patterns in the context of comparison with mature language patterns. Her studies include typically developing children within diverse language environments, as well as infants with hearing impairment and children with severe speech disorders. She has published widely in national and international venues.Lisa M. Bedore is a professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Texas at Austin. She is interested in the ways that language learners integrate information about language form and meaning across domains in learning. To this end she has studied monolingual and bilingual children with typically developing language and communication impairments. Her work includes studies of phonology, word learning, and grammar.

• 1. The Problem. 2. The Enabling Mechanisms. 3. The Model. 4. Vocalization and Pattern Detection through Moving and Sensing. 5. Refining Patterns of Complexity. 6. Contemporary Theories and Paradigms. 7. The Present State and a Future for Emergence.

"The application of complexity theory to the acquisition of phonology is a clear step forward and this valuable book brings together the diverse strands of research that will eventually lead to a complete explanatory theory." -- Joan Bybee, Ph.D., University of New Mexico