Phonological development of Finnish speaking children at 3;6 and associations to previous and simultaneous lexical ability

Phonological variations in typically-developing Italian-speaking children aged 3;0-4;11

Normative data on phonological acquisition of a language are a prerequisite for evaluating children's speech sound competences. To date, these data are not sufficiently available for Italian. This study, therefore, aimed to describe the phonological development of 183 typically developing monolingual Italian-speaking children aged 3;0-4;11 (four 6-months age bands). Participants were assessed through a picture naming task, and performances analysed in terms of number of phonological variations (Tokens), Types and percentage of occurrence of patterns, and number of infrequent variants (InfrVar) as a measure of stability in speech production. Two cut-off criteria to distinguish InfrVar from phonological patterns were applied. Results showed a gradual reduction of all measures with increasing age. Twenty-two patterns generally in line with previous Italian and cross-linguistic studies were observed, with only five patterns and two phonetic distortions occurring across all age groups. Eight patterns only emerged when applying the lower cut-off criterion, while further seven patterns only occurred with very low frequency or in isolated age groups. These findings highlight the influence of the selected cut-off criterion on the identification of patterns and raise the question of whether some patterns should rather be considered InfVar. Data on younger children are still needed to clarify whether low-frequency patterns are patterns of younger typically developing children that have almost resolved in the age groups assessed. At least half of the phonological variation Tokens fell into the category of InfrVar, indicating a need to pay more attention to this so far ignored measure.

Early receptive and expressive lexicons and language and pre-literacy skills at 5;0 years - A longitudinal study

BACKGROUND

The long-term associations between early receptive/expressive lexical skills and later language/pre-literacy skills require clarification.

AIMS

To study the association between and predictive values of early receptive/expressive lexical skills and language/pre-literacy skills at 5;0 years, and to examine the language profiles at 5;0 years of children with weak receptive language/expressive lexical skills at 2;0 years.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS

The participants were 66 monolingual children. Their lexical skills were measured using the Finnish short-form version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories at 1;6 and 2;0 years. Receptive language skills were measured at 2;0 years using the Reynell Developmental Language Scales III. A broader assessment at 5;0 years measured lexical, phonological, morphological and pre-literacy skills.

RESULTS

Significant associations between receptive/expressive lexical skills at 1;6 years and language and pre-literacy skills at 5;0 years were found. Both receptive language and expressive lexical development measured at 2;0 years were greatly and relatively evenly associated with language and pre-literacy skills at 5;0 years. Lexicon/language variables at 1;6 years and 2;0 years had statistically significant predictive values for general language and pre-literacy scores at 5;0 years. The best models that included early lexical predictors explained 20-34% of later language/literacy outcome. Weak skills at 2;0 years proposed vulnerability in language and pre-literacy skills at 5;0 years.

CONCLUSIONS

Language and pre-literacy skills at 5;0 years can to some extent be explained by early receptive language and/or expressive lexical development. Further assessment and/or follow-up is important for children who have had weak language/lexical skills at 2;0 years.

Speech sound development in typically developing 2-7-year-old Dutch-speaking children: A normative cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Dutch is a West-Germanic language spoken natively by around 24 million speakers. Although studies on typical Dutch speech sound development have been conducted, norms for phonetic and phonological characteristics of typical development in a large sample with a sufficient age range are lacking.

AIM

To give a detailed description of the speech sound development of typically developing Dutch-speaking children from 2 to 7 years.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

A total of 1503 typically developing children evenly distributed across the age range of 2;0-6;11 years participated in this normative cross-sectional study. The picture-naming task of the Computer Articulation Instrument (CAI) was used to collect speech samples. Speech development was described in terms of (1) percentage consonants correct-revised (PCC-R) and percentage vowels correct (PVC); (2) consonant, vowel and syllabic structure inventories; (3) degrees of complexity (phonemic feature hierarchy); and (4) phonological processes.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

A two-way mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) confirmed a significant increase in the number of PCC-R and PVC between the ages of 2;0 and 6;11 years (p < 0.001). The consonant inventory was found to be complete at 3;7 years of age for the syllable-initial consonants, with the exception of the voiced fricatives /v/ and /z/, and the liquid /r/. All syllable-final consonants were acquired before age 4;4 years. At age 3;4 years, all children had acquired a complete vowel inventory, and at age 4;7 years they produced most syllable structures correctly, albeit that the syllable structure CCVCC was still developing. All phonological contrasts were produced correctly at 3;8 years of age. Children in the younger age groups used more phonological simplification processes than the older children, and by age 4;4 years, all had disappeared, except for the initial cluster reduction from three to two consonants and the final cluster reduction from two to one consonant.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

This paper describes a large normative cross-sectional study of Dutch speech sound development which, in clinical practice, can help Dutch speech-language pathologists to differentiate children with delayed or disordered speech development from typically developing children. What this paper adds What is already known on this subject In recent years many studies have been conducted worldwide to investigate speech sound development in different languages, including several that explored the typical speech sound development of Dutch-speaking children, but none of these latter studies explored both phonetic and phonological progress within a comprehensive age range and a large sample that is representative of the Dutch population. What this study adds to existing knowledge This study serves to fill this gap by providing normative cross-sectional results obtained in 1503 typically developing Dutch-speaking children aged between 2;0 and 6;11 years on informative parameters of speech development: PCC-R and PVC, consonant, vowel and syllabic structure inventories, degrees of complexity (phonemic feature hierarchy), and phonological simplification processes. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The detailed description of typical Dutch speech sound development provides speech-language pathologists with pertinent information to determine whether a child's speech development progresses typically or is delayed or disordered.