Lecture 3: normal development, speech sound learning, and phonological processes

What happens during first year of speech devlopment

infralogical skills and canonical babbling

What are infralogical skills?

• Early infant vocalizations/protophones (approximations of phones)

• not yet meaningful

• not easily recognizable

What is Canonical babbling?

• infant vocalizations comprising of adult-like sounds and syllables

• recognizable consonants and vowels

• usually seen in stage 4

What are the 5 infralogical stages?

1. phonation (birth- 2 months)

2. primitive articulation (1-4 months)

3. expansion (3-8 months)

4. canonical babbling (5-10 months)

5. integrative stage

What happens during stage 1: phonation (birth-2 months)?

reflexive vocalizations: crying, fussing, coughing, sneezing, burping

• vowel-like

• no sustained vowels (except crying and fussing)

What happens during stage 2: primitive articulation (1-4 months)?

New sounds (squeals, growls, coos/goos)

• varied duration of sounds

• varied intensity

• stimulus-based: when they see your face, they make a sound

What happens during stage 3: expansion (3-8 months)?

Period of vocal play and interaction

• hearing their own voice

• full vowels developing

• vocal tract more open/ varied vocal quality

• marginal babbling: produce vowel-like and consonant-like protophones (not adult sounds yet

What happens during stage 4: canonical babbling (5-10 months)?

Normal phonations (sustaining a vowel), repetitive patterns; reduplicated and variegated babbling; may produce stops, nasals, glides, lax vowels

• good oral resonance

• adult-like

What happens during stage 5: integrative stage?

Onset of speech: final stage in infant development

• may last up to 18 months

• first meaningful word

• jargon: combination of meaningful words with babbling

• gibberish: nonsense

• at the end of this stage, infants combine syllables/sounds and generate words

What are proto words?

Stable phonetic forms used consistently in a particular context but, not recognized as adult-word form

• Ex: uses “/bi/” (bee) for “dog”

What is first fifty word stage?

The time from first meaningful utterance (around 12 months) to the time when the child begins to put two words words together (18-24 months)

What is included in the first fifty word stage?

• item learning

• holophrastic period

• phonetic variability

• limited syllable structures

• limited sounds

What is item learning?

During this time, child acquires word forms as unanalyzed units rather than by contrasting phonemes

What is the holophrastic period?

Using 1-word to indicate a whole idea

What is phonetic variability?

Expecting errors

What are limited syllable structures?

Children don’t have sophisticated syllable shapes. They have simple syllable structures. (Ex: CV, CCVV)

What are limited sounds?

• Vowels /a/ (ah) typically precede /i/ (ee) and /u/ (oo)

• Consonants /p/, /b/, and /m/ are among the earliest

• Individual variation exists (every child is different)

• fewer errors with vowels than consonants; consonants are more complex

Which consonants are usually produced earlier?

Consonants that we can “see”: /m/, /n/, /p/, /b/, /k/, g/, etc.

What is one of the latest developing sounds?

the /r/ sound (approx. 8 years)

Earlier sounds vs. later sounds

Earlier sounds should be mastered earlier, not just produced earlier

What is the definition of phonological processes>

Regularly occurring simplifications of adult sound productions that may affect classes of sounds

• patterns that children use to simplify words

• natural processes

When are phonological processes most common?

Before the age of 3

• final consonant deletion is most typical in normal speech

• initial consonant deletion is more atypical

What are the 3 types of phonological processes?

Syllable structure, substitution, assimilation

What is syllable structure processes?

Processes that reduce or change the syllable shape

What is the definition of reduplication?

A syllable structure process, where you see partial/total repetitions of a syllable of word

• Ex: banana → “baba”

What is the definition of unstressed syllable deletion?

A syllable structure process, where a child deletes a syllable from a multisyllabic word that is unstressed

• Ex: computer → “puter”

What is the definition of cluster reduction?

A syllable structure process, where a child deletes a part of the cluster

• Ex: stop → “top”; ask → “as”

What is the definition of final consonant deletion?

A syllable structure process, where the child deletes the final consonant when next to a vowel

• Ex: bed → “be”

What is the definition of initial consonant deletion?

A syllable structure process, where the child deletes the initial consonant when to next to a vowel

• Ex: cat → “at”

What is the definition of epenthesis?

A syllable structure process, where there is an insertion of a vowel between 2 consonants or at the end of a word

• Ex: blue → “b-uh-lue”

What is substitution processes?

Processes marked by the replacement of one class of sounds for another

What is stopping?

A substitution process, where there is a replacement of fricatives and affricates with stops

• Ex: fan → “ban”

What is fronting?

A substitution process, where a velar is replaced with alveolar sound

• Ex: cat → “tat” (k,g → t,d)

What is gliding?

A substitution process, where a liquid is replaced with a glide

• Ex: red → “wed”

What is depalatalization?

A substitution process, where a palatal sound is replaced with a non-palatal sound

• Ex: shoot → “soot”

What is deffrication?

A substitution process, where an affricate sound is replaced with a stop or fricative (usually comes with depalatalization)

• Ex: choose → “sooz”

What is backing?

A substitution process, where frontal consonants are replaced with back consonants

• Ex: doll → goll

What is vocalization?

A substitution process, where syllabic liquids or nasals are replaced with vowels

• Ex: bottle → bado

What is assimilation processes?

Processed that alter a consonant phoneme so that it becomes more similar to a surr