Acquisition of /s/ clusters in English-speaking children with phonological disorders

Abstract

Two member onset consonant clusters with /s/ as the first member (#sC onsets) behave differently from other double onset consonant clusters in English. Phonological explanations of children's consonant cluster production have been posited to predict children's speech acquisition. The aim of this study was to consider the role of the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), homorganicity, headedness, and factorial typology in the explanation of productions of consonant clusters by children with phonological disorders. Thirty monolingual English-speaking children with phonological disorders produced words commencing with #sC: /s/+stop (/sT/), /s/+nasal (/sN/), /sl/, and /sw/. There was wide individual variation between participants. Overall, there was an increase in accuracy of consonant cluster production as the sonority indices of the second element of the cluster increased: there was significantly greater accuracy of /sl/ than /sN/ and significantly greater accuracy of /sN/ than /sT/. However, /sw/ targets only followed the SSP for phonologically accurate (but not phonetically accurate) productions. Correct renditions justified the binary grouping of the SSP-following vs SSP-violating separation. Homorganicity of the cluster was not a factor in determining relative accuracy of the targets. The percentage of correct renditions justified the /s/+[−continuant] vs /s/+[+continuant] binary separation. There were several counterexamples of predictions of the headedness approach. Thus, sonority and factorial typology were found to be useful in predicting /s/ consonant cluster acquisition of children with phonological disorders.

Keywords:

• /s/-clusters
• English
• phonological disorders
• acquisition

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the participants in this study. We were extremely lucky to have the help of several individuals in the data collection. Special thanks to Teri Munoz and her staff, to the directors and staff of PATCHES and SPECS in Miami, and to Margarett Ferrer for their willingness and efforts. Our thanks also go to Dr Paulette Johnson of Florida International University for the statistical analyses.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

1. We observe similar situations with the other targets also, but the numbers are significantly lower, as shown in the following numbers: /sl-/ = 11 ([θl] = 8, [tl] = 2, [fl] = 1); /sn-/ = 7 ([θn] = 7); /sm/ = 1 ([fm=1); /sk-/ = 6 ([θk] = 6); /st-/ = 6 ([θt] = 6); /sp-/ = 1 ([fp] = 1).

2. Since the inclusion of phonologically correct but phonetically erroneous realizations created significant changes in the results, hereafter the figures for correct realizations will show the percentages in both ways.