This lecture discusses phonological development in children from ages 1 to 7. It outlines the stages of crying, cooing, and babbling in the first year. By age 2 1/2, children have mastered most vowels and 2/3 of consonants, with difficulty remaining for a few consonants by age 4. Sounds are used correctly first at beginnings of words. To make words easier, children may delete or substitute sounds. While speech may lag comprehension, studies show children can understand sounds they cannot pronounce. Intonation understanding continues developing into the teenage years.

1. Lecture Two
Phonological Development

2. Phonological development …
• This lecture deals with how
children develop the ability to use
and understand the sounds of
language.

3. The first year …
• The phonological
development that occurs
during the first year of a
child’s life was outlined
last week:
 Crying
 Cooing
 Babbling
 Phonemic expansion and
contraction

4. 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.

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.

6. General trends …
• Consonants are first used correctly at the
beginnings of words.
• Consonants at the end of words present
more difficulty.
• Example: ‘push’ versus ‘rip’

7. General trends …
• Frequency: generally, sounds which occur
frequently in a large number of words will
be acquired before sounds that occur less
frequently.

8. Making words easier (phonemic
simplification) …
• Deletion
• Final consonants
may be dropped.
• Unstressed syllables
are often deleted.
• Consonant clusters
are reduced.

9. Making words easier (phonemic
simplification) …
• Substitution
• Easier sounds are
substituted for harder
ones:
• ‘r’ becomes ‘w’
• ‘th’ becomes ‘d’, ‘n’
or ‘f’
• ‘t’ becomes ‘d’
• ‘p’ becomes ‘b’

10. Understanding …
• Remember: last week we learned that
comprehension is often ahead of speech
(e.g. first words).
• The same can be true in phonological
development.

11. Berko and Brown (1960) …
• Child: fis
• Adult: This if your fis?
• Child: No-my fis.
• Adult: Oh, this is your fish.
• Child: Yes, my fis.

12. Berko and Brown (1960) …
• Child with indistinguishable pronunciation
of:
mouse/mouth
cart/card
jug/duck
• Could point to corresponding pictures in a
comprehension task.

13. Intonation …
• As a child grows older, a wider range of
meanings is expressed through intonation.
• Example: two-word stage:
• ‘my car’ versus ‘MY car’

14. Intonation …
• Although intonation patterns can be
reproduced from an early stage,
understanding of their meaning is still
developing into the teenage years.

15. Cruttenden (1974) …
• Football results.
• Intonation used in first team’s score
enabled adults to accurately predict home
win, away win or draw.
• Children (aged 7-11): youngest were
largely unsuccessful and oldest were
significantly less successful than adults.

16. New vocabulary …
• Phonemic simplification
• Deletion
• Substitution