Relationships between lexical and phonological development in young children*

Abstract

Our understanding of the relationships between lexical and phonological development has been enhanced in recent years by increased interest in this area from language scientists, psychologists and phonologists. This review article provides a summary of research, highlighting similarities and differences across studies. It is suggested that the research falls into two categories with different goals and different methodological approaches: (1) child-centered studies that examine the influences active in the prelinguistic and early-word period, emphasizing individual developmental patterns and the active role played by the child; and (2) studies inspired by research on word processing in adults; these focus on the effects of the phonological and lexical characteristics of the ambient language on underlying representations and word learning in children. The article concludes with suggestions for integrating the findings from the two approaches and for future research.

Language Proficiency in Children with Cleft Palate

“…During phonological development, the baby develops vocal play and later on certain babbling sequences that serve as the building blocks for latter word production [2]. Babies with cleft palate have a disadvantage during this vocal development since the palate is not yet repaired at these stages and they have to engage in the vocal practice with a cleft palate.…”

“…He also mentioned some research findings indicating that children, who have difficulty learning phonology, show similar difficulties for learning morphological, syntactic, and semantic regularities of language as well. It has also been recognized that there is a bidirectional relationship between phonology and language processing in children who are developing language [2].…”

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

“…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. In addition, children with large vocabularies have phonological systems more complex than those with small vocabularies, since the larger amount of words produced can generate the requirement of a more advanced phonological system (6) . A recent study (7) revealed that children in the early stages of phonological acquisition select the words they will say based on how "pronounceable" they are.…”

Lapselle suunnatun puheen piirteet ja niiden yhteys sanaston kehitykseen 24 ja 30 kuukauden iässä

“…Sanojen ymmärtämisen voidaan normaalitilanteessa odottaa alkavan 7-10 kuukauden iässä (Fenson ym., 1994;Harris, Yeeles, Chasin & Oakley, 1995;Kuhl, 2007) tai jopa tätä aiemmin (Bergelson & Swingley, 2012). Sanojen tuottaminen alkaa keskimää-rin 12 kuukauden iässä (Clark, 2009, s. 14;Fenson ym., 1994;Stoel-Gammon, 2011), mutta yksilöllinen vaihtelu on suurta. Suomalaistutkimuksessa (Stolt, Haataja, Lapinleimu & Lehtonen, 2008) lapset tuottivat 12 kuukauden iässä keskimäärin neljä sanaa, kun ymmärrettyjen sanojen keskiarvo oli jo 94.…”

“…Yksilöllisillä eroilla lasten kehityksessä ja vuorovaikutuksen aikaisessa toiminnassa saattaa olla merkitystä siinä, minkälaiseksi lapselle suunnattu puhe muotoutuu. Aiheen tutkimus on tärkeää siksi, että yksilölliset erot varhaisessa sanaston kehityksessä ovat merkittävät (Clark, 2009, s. 14;Fenson ym., 1994;Stoel-Gammon, 2011;Stolt ym., 2008). Lisäksi on huomionarvoista, että tietty lapselle suunnatun puheen piirre saattaa olla jossain vaiheessa merkityksellinen lapsen puheen kehitykselle, mutta myöhem-min vastaavaa funktiota ei välttämättä ole (mm.…”