Consonant cluster acquisition in Chilean children with typical and protracted phonological development

ABSTRACT

The current study addresses the acquisition of tautosyllabic consonant clusters (CCs) in Chilean preschoolers with typical (TD) versus protracted phonological development (PPD). The objectives were to analyze accuracy of CCs and mismatch (error) patterns as a function of age (4/ 5 years) and TD/PPD group, examining effects of sonority, stress, place of articulation and development of /l/ and /ɾ/ as singletons. Participants included 20 Chilean Spanish-speaking children with TD and 20 with PPD (ages 4 and 5 years). The TD group showed higher accuracy and an age effect. For both developmental groups, timing unit match was higher than full segmental match. CCs with labial and voiceless C1s in stressed syllables were most accurate. In the PPD group, deletions predominated over substitutions, deletions of C1 were significantly higher and the typology of substitutions was more differentiated. Results are evaluated in light of previous research on Chilean preschoolers, and clinical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Phonological acquisition
• consonant clusters
• protracted phonological development
• nonlinear phonology
• clinical phonology

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the children, their families and the schools who took part in this research.

Declaration of interests

The authors declare having no conflicts of interest in this study.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants to the first author from the Fundación Carolina and the CONICYT (Programa Formación de Capital Humano Avanzado Doctorado Becas Chile)[2019- 72200009];