We investigated the speech processing and production of 2-year-old children acquiring isiXhosa in South Africa. Two children (2 years, 5 months; 2 years, 8 months) are presented as single cases. Speech input processing, stored phonological knowledge and speech output are described, based on data from auditory discrimination, naming, and repetition tasks. Both children were approximating adult levels of accuracy in their speech output, although naming was constrained by vocabulary. Performance across tasks was variable: One child showed a relative strength with repetition, and experienced most difficulties with auditory discrimination. The other performed equally well in naming and repetition, and obtained 100% for her auditory task. There is limited data regarding typical development of isiXhosa, and the focus has mainly been on speech production. This exploratory study describes typical development of isiXhosa using a variety of tasks understood within a psycholinguistic framework. We describe some ways in which speech and language therapists can devise and carry out assessment with children in situations where few formal assessments exist, and also detail the challenges of such work.

BackgroundBilingualism is common in South Africa, with many children acquiring isiXhosa as a home language and learning English from a young age in nursery or crèche. IsiXhosa is a local language, part of the Bantu language family, widely spoken in the country.AimsTo describe changes in a bilingual child’s speech following intervention based on a theoretically motivated and tailored intervention plan.Methods and proceduresThis study describes a female isiXhosa–English bilingual child, named Gcobisa (pseudonym) (chronological age 4 years and 2 months) with a speech sound disorder. Gcobisa’s speech was assessed and her difficulties categorised according to Dodd’s (2005) diagnostic framework. From this, intervention was planned and the language of intervention was selected. Following intervention, Gcobisa’s speech was reassessed.Outcomes and resultsGcobisa’s speech was categorised as a consistent phonological delay as she presented with gliding of/l/in both English and isiXhosa, cluster reduction in English and several other age appropriate phonological processes. She was provided with 16 sessions of intervention using a minimal pairs approach, targeting the phonological process of gliding of/l/, which was not considered age appropriate for Gcobisa in isiXhosa when compared to the small set of normative data regarding monolingual isiXhosa development. As a result, the targets and stimuli were in isiXhosa while the main language of instruction was English. This reflects the language mismatch often faced by speech language therapists in South Africa. Gcobisa showed evidence of generalising the target phoneme to English words.Conclusions and implicationsThe data have theoretical implications regarding bilingual development of isiXhosa–English, as it highlights the ways bilingual development may differ from the monolingual development of this language pair. It adds to the small set of intervention studies investigating the changes in the speech of bilingual children following intervention. In addition, it contributes to the small amount of data gathered regarding typical bilingual acquisition of this language pair.

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