Lexical and Phonological Effects in Early Word Production

Abstract

Purpose This study examines the influence of word frequency, phonological neighborhood density (PND), age-of-acquisition (AoA), and phonotactic probability on production variability and accuracy of known words by toddlers with no history of speech, hearing, or language disorders. Method Fifteen toddlers between 2;0 and 2;5 produced monosyllabic target words varying in word frequency, PND, AoA, and phonotactic probability. Phonetic transcription was used to determine (1) whole-word variability and (2) proportion of whole-word proximity (PWP) (Ingram, 2002) of each target word produced. Results Results showed a significant effect of PND on both proximity and variability (words from dense neighborhoods were closer to the adult targets and less variable than those from sparse neighborhoods), a significant effect of word frequency on variability (high frequency words were less variable) but not proximity, and a significant effect of AoA on proximity (earlier acquired words were farther from the adult target than later acquired words) but not variability. Conclusions Results provide new information regarding the role lexical and phonological factors play in the speech of young children; specifically, several factors are identified that influence variability of production. Additionally, by examining lexical and phonological factors simultaneously, the current study is able to isolate differential effects of individual factors that have often been conflated in previous work. Implications for our understanding of emerging phonological representations are discussed.

Comparação da aquisição de /k/ e /g/ e das sequências fonéticas [kw] e [gw] no pb - variáveis intervenientes e status fonológico

“…The frequencies of production evidenced that there are moments of higher correct production of those elements, followed by decrease of this production, with a posterior increase. This behavior, during the acquisition of a certain phoneme, was observed in several studies in BP [14][15][16][17][18][19] .…”

Correlações entre aquisição do vocabulário e da fonologia: número de palavras produzidas versus consoantes adquiridas

“…For the children from the other age groups, which present more stable productions, the following method for reliability between transcriptions was used: all samples were transcribed by an experienced evaluator in child language and a second evaluator with the same experience transcribed, independently, 20% of the same sample for reliability (5,17) . There was a mean agreement of 79.6% at the 3-yr age groups; 81.9% for 4-yr groups; and 80.1% for 5-yr groups.…”

“…One study suggested that changes in vocabulary observed in children with specific alterations in language development can be explained by difficulties observed in skills and/or characteristics directly related to mechanisms involved in information processing, which hinder the quality and recovery of phonological and semantic representations of a new lexical item (4) . Another study conducted in 2012 (5) , with 15 children with typical development at two years of age, used a spontaneous naming method for words the children already knew in order to analyze the influence of frequency of lexical types, similarity of phonological types, age of acquisition and phonotactic probability on the variability and precision of production. The authors found that phonological complexity plays an important role in that words with late-acquisition phonemes and syllable structures are produced with greater variability and both the frequency of lexical types and the phonological similarity influence the observed variability in speech-the greater the effect of frequency of lexical type and phonological similarity, the less variability in productions.…”

Correlações entre a produção de classes fonêmicas e classes gramaticais no Português Brasileiro

“…A second judge with the same experience transcribed, independently, 20% of the same recording to certify the reliability (3,14) . In this way, the mean agreement was 79.6% by ages of three; 81.9% by ages of four; and 80.1% by ages of five.…”

“…Another research (3) with 15 children typically developed and aged between 2;0 e 2;5 (years; months) aimed to analyze the influence of word frequency, phonological neighborhood density, age of acquisition and phonotactic probability on production variability and accuracy of known words. The authors found that there is an important role of phonological neighborhood density -words with sounds and syllabic structures acquired later are produced with greater variability and both the word frequency and the phonoctactic probability influence in the speech variability, i.e., high frequency words were less variable.…”