Fox-Boyer, A., Lavaggi, S. and Fricke, S. orcid.org/0000-0003-2706-121X (2022) Phonological variations in typically-developing Italian-speaking children aged 3;0-4;11. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 36 (2-3). pp. 241-259. ISSN 0269-9206
Abstract
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Italian; phonological development; phonological patterns; phonological variations |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 28 Jun 2021 11:46 |
Last Modified: | 22 Jul 2022 00:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/02699206.2021.1945686 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:175341 |