CLA: phonological development

Question 1

Why do children struggle with words in their early life?

Answer 1

They lack the fine motor control of the articulators.

Question 2

What is the first stage in children’s language development?

Answer 2

CRYING- natural, innate sounds with no meaning attached

Question 3

What is Cooing?

Answer 3

• Early vowel-like sounds that babies produce.
• Preparation for speech.
• Open-mouth vowel sounds: oo, ee, ah, uh, oh, aa (vocal play).

Question 4

What is Babbling?

Answer 4

• Intentional vocalization that lacks specific meaning.

- *Consonant vowel combinations (CVCV): gaga, baba, googoo.

Question 5

What is the CVCV structure also known as?

Answer 5

Variegated babbling (combining different syllables)

Question 6

What are all of these sounds known as?

Answer 6

• Biological tentative sounds: instinctive, important for survival of species (crying initiates a caregiving reaction, and so the baby is communicating it’s needs).
• They lack teeth and so are unable to produce a wide range of sounds (along with lacking motor control).

Question 7

What is true of all babies at this stage in their language development?

Answer 7

-The early consonant sounds are universal, no matter where they are in the world or the languages they are surrounded by.

Question 8

What is the misconception of babies first words?

Answer 8

-‘Mama’ and ‘papa’ aren’t usually their first words as they are usually just babbling (experimentation/vocal play); becomes a first word when there is meaning attached to it.

Question 9

Addition

Answer 9

When a child adds a consonant or vowel to the end of a word to create a CVCV structure (easier for them to say)
e.g. ‘dog’ -> ‘doggy’

Question 10

Reduplication

Answer 10

-Repeating a whole syllable e.g. ‘dada’, ‘mama’ and ‘choochoo’

Question 11

Assimilation

Answer 11

When a sound later on e.g. the /b/ in ‘rabbit’ might assimilate to the front position of the word to form ‘babbit’.
Replacing a difficult sound for a sound already in the word.

Question 12

Voicing

Answer 12

Subsitution of a voiced consonant for an unvoiced consonant (typically in the beginning of a word)
e.g. ‘gup’ for cup

Question 13

Devoicing

Answer 13

• An assimilatory phonological process (voicing assimilation) that involves the replacement of a voiceless phoneme for a normally voiced, syllable-final consonant preceding a pause or silence.
  e. g. ‘back’ for bag

Question 14

EARLY DIFFICULTIES: Deletion

Answer 14

• A child drops a consonant when it is surrounded on one or more sides by vowels.
• Usually (but not always) occurs at the end of words. e.g. sleep -> seep, dog -> do, hat -> ha

Question 15

EARLY DIFFICULTIES: Consonant cluster reduction

Answer 15

• Phonological process seen in preschool children in which one or more consonants are deleted from a cluster of two or more in order to simplify production.
  e. g. spider -> pider

Question 16

Final consonant deletion

Answer 16

-Deletion of the final consonant in a word.
e.g. ‘cuh’ for ‘cup’
‘dah’ for ‘dog’.

Question 17

Initial consonant deletion

Answer 17

-Omission of a single consonant at the beginning of a word.
e.g. ‘up’ for ‘cup’
‘uv’ for ‘love’

Question 18

Unstressed syllable deletion

Answer 18

-Omission of one or more syllables from a polysyllabic word.
e.g. banana -> nana
computer -> puter

Question 19

Substitution

Answer 19

• When a child changes one sound for another (one that is easier to say)
  e. g. substituting the voiced palatal approximant (/j/) for the voiced alveolar lateral approximant (/I/) in the ‘yellow’.

Question 20

What kind of sounds could be substituted for?

Answer 20

• Fricative sound replaced by a stop sound in roughly the same area.
  e. g. ‘sing’ -> ‘ting’, ‘zebra’ -> ‘debra’, ‘thing’ -> ‘ting’

Question 21

What might children substitute sounds for?

Answer 21

• Substituting liquid for glide consonants.

- Substituting nasal sounds for denasalised sounds.

Question 22

Glide consonant

Answer 22

A consonant produced when the tongue approaches a point of articulation within the mouth but doesn’t come close enough to obstruct or constrict the flow of air enough to create turbulence
e.g. ‘rabbit’ -> ‘wabbit - the lips don’t touch completely in the ‘w’, and so is easier for them to say.

Question 23

Liquid consonant

Answer 23

• Requires a curl in the tongue, and so is harder for children to say
  e. g. ‘l’ and ‘r’
• The tongue produces a partial closure in the mouth.

Question 24

Stopping

Answer 24

-Substitution of a stop (b, p, t, d, k, g) for a fricative (f, v, s, z, th, sh, ch) or affricate (ch, j)

Question 25

THEORY: Berko and Brown - ‘Fis’ phenomenon

Answer 25

• Proved that children can recognise mistakes but fail to pronounce the words themselves.
• Child was talking to their caregiver about a plastic ‘fis’.
• Caregiver repeated ‘fis’ back to the child, to which they said ‘no not fis, fis’ - could understand the mistake, but couldn’t physically pronounce it themselves.
• Comprehension precedes competency.

Question 26

THEORY: What was PAMELLA GRUNWELL’S phonological acquisition sequence?

Answer 26

24 months: p, b, m, d, n, w, t
30 months: K, g, h, n
36 months: F, s, j, l 
42 months: V, z, r 
48+ months: ?

Question 27

Fronting consonant

Answer 27

Substitution of sound created at the back of the mouth for one at the front
e.g. cop - top

Question 28

Backing

Answer 28

Substitution of sound created at the front of the mouth for one at the back
e.g. top - cop

Question 29

Stress-timed language

Answer 29

E.g. BaNAna, PretENDing
Children are more likely to focus on this part of the word, and so are therefore more likely to say ‘nana’ and ‘tending’ (form of simplification).

Question 30

Give a context where a child might be seeming to make an error but aren’t.

Answer 30

‘Dis one’ or ‘dat one’ - Black British English uses this phoneme in their normal range of sounds, so upbringing and environment can influence the phonology. The children are converging to match the language they hear around them.

Question 31

When adults use a baby voice / child directed speech, what are they trying to get the baby to do?

Answer 31

They are converging with the baby’s stage of development to aid their language at the time.