Articulation or phonology? Evidence from longitudinal error data.

Articulation or phonology? Evidence from longitudinal error data. Clin Linguist Phon. 2018 Jul 03;:1-15 Authors: Dodd B, Reilly S, Ttofari Eecen K, Morgan AT Abstract Children's speech difficulties can be motor (phone misarticulation) or linguistic (impaired knowledge of phonological contrasts and constraints). These two difficulties sometimes co-occur. This paper reports longitudinal data from the Early Language in Victoria Study (ELVS) at 4 and 7 years of age. Of 1494 participants, 93 made non-age appropriate speech errors on standardised assessments at 4 years, and were able to be reassessed at 7 years. At 4 years, 85% of these children only made phonological errors, 14% made both articulation and phonological errors and one child only made articulation errors (a lateral lisp). In total, 8 of 13 children making both articulation and phonological errors at 4 years had resolved by 7 years. Unexpectedly, eight children who had demonstrated articulation of fricatives at 4 years, acquired distorted production of ≥ 50% of occurrences of/s, z/ by 7 years. In total, then, 22 children (24% of children with speech difficulties) made articulatory errors at one or both assessments. Case data for all children are presented. Theoretical and clinical implications are considered. PMID: 29969299 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Tags: Clin Linguist Phon Source Type: research