1. Child Language Acquisition
Phonological development ©
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2. ‘effalant’ for’elephant’ ‘dibbits’ for ‘biscuits’ ‘doy’’for ‘toy
Here are some words as they are pronounced by young children. Can you work out the ‘rules’ behind these mispronunciations?
‘seep’ for ‘sheep’
‘effalant’ for’elephant’
‘dibbits’ for ‘biscuits’
‘doy’’for ‘toy
‘wosie’ for ‘Rosie’
‘choo-choo’ for ‘train’ ©
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3. First things first
We’re not dealing with how words are spelt but how they are sounded.
It’s therefore helpful to have at least some understanding of the sounds of English and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). ©
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4. Early stages
Crying
We all know what crying looks like… and sounds like:
Cooing
Open mouth vowel sounds: oo, aa, ee, uh, oh
Babbling
Consonant vowel combinations (CVCV): gaga, baba, gagoo, wawa etc.
Click the picture and make sure your speakers are on ©
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5. General Trends Age 2 ½ : all vowels and 2/3 of consonants mastered.
Age 4: difficulty with only a few consonants.
Age 6-7: confident use. ©
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6. Be careful...
Be careful not to make sweeping generalisations when talking about later phonological development.
Order in which vowels and consonants are acquired varies from child to child.
Sometimes children appear to have mastered a sound in one word, but then not in another. ©
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7. Early patterns /pɪg/ /kæt/
When children are trying to say words that they can’t yet produce, they tend to make similar errors.
Before we look at these patterns, try writing these animals’ names using the phonetic alphabet.
/pɪg/
/kæt/ … ©
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8. Examples
Watch these examples. Note down what the children are saying and what the adult target might be:
Liam at 12 months
Ruby at 21 months ©
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9. Consonant clusters /skwɪrəl/ /strɒŋ/ /blæŋkɪt/ /pɪglət/ strong
Certain sounds contain consonant clusters. Think about some of the following words and how they would appear in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet):
strong
squirrel
/skwɪrəl/
/strɒŋ/
blanket
piglet
/blæŋkɪt/
/pɪglət/
Eastern Grey Squirrel – taken by David Iliff Nov 2006 … ©
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10. Making words easier (phonemic simplification) …
Deletion
Final consonants may be dropped.
Unstressed syllables are often deleted.
Consonant clusters are reduced. ©
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11. Deletion Deletion often occurs on the last consonant:
a child might say /kæ/ instead of /kæt/ (cat) , /pɪ/ instead of /pɪg/ (pig), or /maʊ/ instead of /maʊs/ (mouse).
Sometimes children delete the last sound and swap other sounds around. Two or three processes can work together, making children’s early speech quite difficult to comprehend. ©
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12. Early sounds Children also seem to like addition and reduplication:
the repetition of particular sounds and structures, e.g. doggie (adding an extra vowel sound to create a CVCV structure)
choochoo (repeating the whole syllable). ©
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13. Consonant clusters
Children find it difficult to produce these consonant clusters, so will reduce them to smaller units:
/skwɪrəl/ - /skɪrəl/
/strɒŋ/ - /stɒŋ/ or /tɒŋ/
/blæŋkɪt/ – /bæŋkɪt/
/pɪglet/ - /pɪget/ or /pɪlet/ ©
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14. Substitution
Another pattern is substitution, where one sound is swapped for another, easier sound:
/sɪŋ/ becomes /tɪŋ/
/zebrə/ becomes /debrə/
/Θɪŋ/ becomes /tɪŋ/
The pattern for all of these is similar: a fricative sound is replaced by a stop sound in roughly the same area of the mouth. ©
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15. Switching sounds
Fricatives and stops are different manners of articulation.
[Fricatives are when we use friction to create a sound, by gradually releasing air through a gap. Try hissing like a snake or buzzing like a bee. Go on; do it…] ©
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16. Switching sounds
Children find fricatives harder to produce than the stop sounds which occur in roughly the same area of the mouth.
[Stop sounds are ones where the air flow is completely stopped.]
So a fricative /z/ gets replaced by a stop /d/, and a fricative /s/ for a stop /t/. ©
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17. Switching sounds
There are other processes which are similar to this fricative – stop substitution. It’s not vital you remember all the technical terms for these, but it’s handy to have examples:
substituting glide for liquid consonants e.g. /ræbɪt/  /wæbɪt/ or /kærət/  /kæwət/
substituting nasal sounds for denasalised ones e.g. /nɒt/  /dɒt/
fronting consonants e.g. /θɪn/  /fɪn/ ©
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18. Assimilation
Assimilation is a process that illustrates how some sounds change because of other sounds around them.
Take /gɒgi:/ and /bæbɪt/. In both cases, the first consonant sound has been influenced by the second, so doggie becomes goggie and rabbit becomes babbit. ©
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19. I want a nana
It’s not just individual sounds that change: whole syllables can go missing.
How many syllables do the words banana and pretending have?
Think about where the stresses fall when we say these words: banana and pretending.
It’s hardly surprising that when children try to say these words they often end with nana and tending. ©
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20. Summary so far… We’ve looked at the following processes so far:
addition
deletion
reduplication
substitution
consonant cluster reduction
deletion of unstressed syllables
assimilation. ©
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21. The importance of context…
You need to be aware that context can also be important. Just because a child says dis one or dat one, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re making a mistake: Black British English uses this phoneme as part of its normal range of sounds. Upbringing and environment have an influence on phonology. ©
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22. Environment and upbringing
Watch this extract and listen out for the ways in which Liam says horse.
Think about why he says it in this way and what the contributing factors might be. ©
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23. Overview There are clear patterns to the errors children make.
Many of the errors are the result of the child trying to produce a sound, but producing one that is either made in a nearby place of articulation, or through a slightly different manner of articulation.
But is it simply a matter of production? Do children actually hear the same things as adults or have the same internal representation of the sounds? ©
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24. The ‘Fis’ phenomenen or ‘Lord of the Wings’
Bellugi and Brown looked at how children failed to pronounce certain sounds but could recognise when someone else got them wrong. For example, a child couldn’t say ‘fish’ and instead said /fɪs/, but noticed when an adult got it wrong. ©
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25. The ‘Fis’ phenomenen or ‘Lord of the Wings’
I tried the same thing with my boys, winding them up when they mispronounced the title of their favourite film, Lord of the Rings:
Liam: I wanna watch Lord of the Wings.
Dad: Wings, you mean like a bird’s wings?
Liam: Nooo, Lord of the WINGS! ©
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