Two-year-olds' phonological acquisition: Normative data

Abstract

The study reported evaluated an assessment of phonology for 2-year-olds to establish normative data and determine if early identification of children with speech difficulties is possible. The study evaluated 62 2-year-old children on the Toddler Phonology Test (TPT). Children produced 32 words, spontaneously or in imitation. Ten of the children were assessed three times, on the third occasion, when they had reached 3 years, on another phonological assessment. The data indicated that older children performed better than younger children on quantitative measures. Girls and boys performed equally well. Their phonetic repertoires were missing some fricatives and all affricates, as well as /r/. Consistently used error patterns identified included cluster reduction, final consonant deletion, stopping, fronting, weak syllable, deletion, gliding and deaffrication. Correlation analyses indicated that performance at the first assessment on the TPT indicated performance on subsequent assessments. While quantitative data was not a reliable predictive indicator of speech disorder, qualitative analysis of error types was predictive, with children who made many atypical errors at 2 years being diagnosed as phonologically disordered at 3 years. The findings provide initial evidence that direct formal assessment of 2-year-old phonology is possible.

Phonological Skills in Korean-English Bilingual Children: Phonetic Inventory and Segmental Accuracy

“…In two-year-old ME children, additional error patterns of final consonant deletion, voicing error, fronting fricatives, assimilation and vowel errors were identified as typical, all of which are expected to be resolved by the age of three years [45].…”

“…Consider the child 4H (aged 4;11), who produced word final consonant deletion and stopping of fricatives in English. These error patterns are typical till 2;11 and 3;5 in ME children, respectively [45]. According to Dodd, Holm [6], gliding of liquids, deaffrication and tri-cluster reduction are typically produced in ME children aged between 4;6 and 4;11.…”

Análise dos traços distintivos e dos sistemas fonético e fonológico nas diferentes gravidades do desvio fonológico

“…Several studies about phonological acquisition mentioned that the consonant clusters is the last structure to be acquired and it is subject to repair strategies because of its complexity 23,33,36 . The simplification of the consonant clusters is the most commonly used strategy in typical and atypical speech data 21,23,32,[36][37][38] .…”

“…In relation to this data, it is verified that the nasals are the first segments to be acquired in typical phonological development, and also the plosives 14,19,[20][21][22][23][24] . Usually, these phonemes are not difficult to be acquired.…”

Auditory perceptual performance of children in the identification of contrasts between stressed vowels

“…Studies on phonological acquisition have been mostly dedicated to speech production, that is, when and how children learn to produce target sounds in their language (1)(2)(3) . At production level, the following order of phonological acquisition is well-established: vowels, plosive, nasal, fricative, and liquid sounds (4) .…”