Strategies used by children with typical and atypical phonological development during the blocked syllable acquisition

PURPOSE:

to study the use of repair strategies by children with typical and atypical speech development through an analysis guided by the syllable from a target with simple coda.

METHODS:

speech data from 24 children with typical speech development and from 12 children with atypical speech development were analyzed. The children's ages were between 1:0 and 4:0 and between 4:1 and 7:0, respectively. The analyzed dependant variable included the following syllabic variants: syllable omission, coda omission, epenthesis, metathesis, and coalescence. The statistical analysis was accomplished through the use of the Statistical Program VARBRUL.

RESULTS:

it was possible to verify the use of repair strategies such as coda omission, coalescence, epenthesis, and metathesis in the children with speech disorders. The group with typical speech development presented higher occurrence of syllable omission. The variable age was significant for coda omission. When observing the variable sex, the girls with atypical speech development seem to use repair strategies more frequently, while the boys omit coda more often. Both groups tend to preserve the word final position. The extrametrical positions were more favorable for coda omission in the group with atypical speech acquisition. The post-stressed position is more favorable for coda omission and the stressed position is favorable for syllable omission in the group with typical development.

CONCLUSION:

the groups used different repair strategies during the blocked syllable acquisition. The group with typical acquisition prefers to omit the syllable, while the group with phonological disorders used the other analyzed repair strategies.

Speech; Speech Disorders; Language; Child Language; Child