Use of Phonological Processes in Australian Children Ages 2 to 7;11 Years

Content Coverage of Single-Word Tests Used to Assess Common Phonological Error Patterns

“…Given that glottal stop replacement affects a much wider class of consonants than just fricatives and affricates (Grunwell, 1981b;James, 2001;Smit, 1993a), we see no viable justification for classifying the replacement of fricatives and affricates by glottal stops as stopping.…”

“…However, this recommendation could be criticized on the grounds that it does not provide a complete picture of a child's phonological system. Research shows that error patterns in the speech of older children are more likely to show up in words consisting of three or more syllables than in shorter words (e.g., James, 2001;James, van Doorn, & McLeod, 2008). Therefore, limiting the phonotactic shape of the test items included in these types of tests may fail to capture the subtleties of the speech of school-age children.…”

“…Although some researchers (e.g., Inkelas & Rose, 2007;McAllister Byun, 2012) have defined velar fronting as occurring when a velar consonant is replaced by a coronal consonant (alveolars and interdentals), the examples discussed in both these studies involve the replacement of velars by alveolars only. We follow researchers who have adopted a stricter definition of velar fronting such that velars are replaced by alveolars only (e.g., Dunn & Davis, 1983;Dyson, 1986;Grunwell, 1981b;James, 2001;Lowe, Knutson, & Monson, 1985;McReynolds & Elbert, 1981;Stoel-Gammon & Dunn, 1985). We also recommend that words with the present progressive suffix (e.g., fishing, swimming, and jumping) not be included as opportunities for velar fronting, given that adult speakers of many dialects of American English frequently substitute [n] for /ŋ/ in the present progressive, particularly in casual speech (Gordon, 2004a;Schneider, 2004).…”

“…Our rationales for these decisions are justified in the discussion that follows. Our selection of error patterns is also supported by a number of research studies that report that these errors are among the most frequently occurring errors in the speech of children learning to speak English (Haelsig & Madison, 1986;Hodson & Paden, 1981;James, 2001;Preisser, Hodson, & Paden, 1988;Roberts, Burchinal, & Footo, 1990). …”

Polysyllable productions in preschool children with speech sound disorders: Error categories and the Framework of Polysyllable Maturity

“…It would be expected that the children's polysyllable productions would be less accurate given that children with typically developing speech and language demonstrate systemic (segmental) and structural phonological processes in polysyllables well beyond the ages previously reported based on mono-and disyllabic word stimuli (James, Ferguson & Butcher, 2016). In addition, it has been reported that children with typically developing speech and language demonstrate lower consonant and vowel accuracy when saying polysyllables compared with monosyllabic and disyllabic words (James, 2001;Vance, Stackhouse & Wells, 2005). Sampling tasks aside, consideration also needs to be given to how a sample of polysyllables produced by children with phonologically-based SSD could best be analysed.…”