BackgroundThere are no published data on typical phonological development for Singaporean children. There is therefore the risk that children' s speech in Singapore may be misdiagnosed or that clinicians may set goals erroneously. AimsThis paper reports a preliminary study on the English phonology of typically developing 4;0-4;5 year old Chinese Singaporean children who speak English and Mandarin. Method and Procedures2 70 children were recruited throughout Singapore and speech samples were collected in English using the Phonology Assessment of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP). The participants were divided equally into two groups -Englishdominant and Mandarin-dominant. Their speech samples were compared with British English targets (BT) and Singapore English targets (ST) in terms of phonological accuracy and types of phonological processes used. Outcomes and ResultsThe results showed that Singaporean children' s phonological accuracy scores increased significantly when scored against ST instead of BT. When scored against ST, Englishdominant children were found to perform similarly to their DEAP counterparts. However, Mandarin-dominant children had significantly less accurate consonant production in English and exhibited more interference effects from Mandarin phonology than English-dominant children. Conclusions and ImplicationsIn this preliminary study, the results highlight the importance of speech and language therapists using local dialect pronunciations to be the target of speech assessments so as to 3 provide appropriate assessment and intervention. It is also essential to account for the language background and language dominance of the children. More local normative data are needed for the typical acquisition of Singapore English in children, especially for children whose dominant language is not English. Declaration of interest:The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. 4 What this paper addsWhat is already known on this subject?The dialect of English in Singapore varies from the target pronunciations of words used in the published standardised speech and language assessments for English-speaking children.Little is known about the phonological development of Singaporean children and many, if not all, are brought up in a bilingual environment. Hence, it is difficult for professionals to accurately determine the presence and severity of a phonological impairment. What this study addsThe phonological features of Singapore English markedly differ from those of British English and other Standard Englishes. Professionals who are not familiar with these features are highly likely to misdiagnose children with phonological impairments. When dialectal features are accounted for, English-dominant bilingual children appear to have similar phonological systems to monolingual English-speaking children. However, children whose dominant language is not English have dissimilar phonological development an...