phonological processes age of elimination

frontingįronting occurs when any consonant that is made posterior to the alveolar ridge is substituted by another consonant that is made at or in front of the alveolar ridge.įor example, goat may be said as doat. We will look at just three of these to get a flavor of how these phonological processes operate.

We will discuss the two main categories:Īgain, there are many different types of substitutions that can be made in typically developing speech. These phonological processes systematically vary a particular type of speech sound and replace it with another speech sound. plan ( CCVC) may become pan ( CVC) or lan ( CVC) ma st (CV CC) may become ma s (CV C) or ma t (CV C).Ĭluster reduction is often observed in children between 2 00-3 06 years of age. plan ( CCVC) becomes an (VC) ma st (CV CC) becomes ma (CV).Īlternatively the cluster may be partially reduced by only articulating one of the consonants in the cluster, e.g. These clusters may be deleted completely, e.g. We know that some words in English are structured with clusters of more than one consonant in a sequence, e.g. Cluster reductionĬluster reduction occurs when one or more consonants in a cluster is omitted. For example, in a CVC sequence the first and last consonants may be reversed, e.g. In sum, there is a reordering of the sequence of consonants (C) and vowels (V) within a syllable. Metathesis occurs when two consonants within a syllable are placed in a different order. This is a typical process In children between the ages of 2 00-4 00 years. So, for example, banana may become nana octopus may become ocpus. the ‘ba’ in banana the ‘to’ in oc topus). These are typically unstressed syllables (e.g. In this process whole syllables are deleted. Weak syllable deletion occurs whenever the unstressed or weak syllable of a multi-syllabic word is omitted. li d becomes li, cu p becomes cu.Ĭonsonant deletion is a typical phonological process for children between the ages of 2 00-3 06 years. cat becomes at, boat becomes oat or at the ends of words ( final consonant deletion), e.g. consonant deletionĬonsonant deletion occurs whenever a consonant in syllable-initial or syllable-final position is omitted.Ĭhildren may delete sounds at the beginning of words ( initial consonant deletion), e.g. There are two main speech segments that are typically deleted: (1) consonants, and (2) weak syllables. DeletionĪ simple way to alter the structure of a word is to omit particular speech segments. Other examples include biscuit being said as bibi, and water being said as wawa.

Syllable 1 syllable 2 → syllable 1 syllable 1 This is a fairly simple structural process that can be summarized as: In this example, the first syllable is reduplicated. Reduplication occurs whenever the initial CV syllable in a multisyllabic word is repeated. Structural simplifications involve some alteration to the structure of a particular word. We will consider two broad categories: (1) structural simplifications, and (2) systemic simplifications. However, I will provide some selected examples that will serve to illustrate how phonological processes operate. In fact, there are far too many to cover adequately in this article. Many so-called phonological simplifying processes have been identified. However, in the typically developing child, these simplifications are not random but fairly predictable. The child may, therefore, simplify the production of complex words. As a consequence, certain sounds, sound combinations or transitions from one sound to another may be currently too difficult.

Phonological processesĬhildren below the age of about 4 06 years may not have sufficient ability to fully co-ordinate the movement of their vocal apparatus. However, this article focuses solely on consonants. In English there are around 24 consonant speech sounds that are capable of displaying this contrastive function, i.e. We see that ‘t’ and ‘d’ are, therefore, capable of contrasting different meanings and so they are considered to be phonemes. This means that they differ in only one element, in this case either the initial consonant ‘t’ or ‘d’. For example, the words tin and din form what is known as a minimal pair. If two speech sounds can contrast to make a distinction in meaning then they are said to be phonemes. These are speech sounds that are capable of creating a distinction in meaning between different words. In particular, phonology is concerned with phonemes. It investigates the systematic organization of sounds in a particular language. Phonology is the study of the rule system that governs how particular speech sounds are used to produce meaningful words.

Phonological processes age of elimination