Word structure and consonant interaction in a French-speaking child with protracted phonological development

ABSTRACT

This paper presents data from a Québec French-speaking child with protracted phonological development (PPD) who received phonological intervention based on a nonlinear phonological framework. At 5;3, he showed relative strengths in word structure compared with consonants (e.g., /s, f, v, k, ɡ/). Addressing segmental constraints in intervention led to higher overall accuracy and more consistent production of singleton consonants and word-medial consonant sequences and further gains in word structure. As part of a special cross-linguistic issue on individual profiles in PPD, the current paper provides an in-depth pre/post-treatment phonological analysis and contributes to emerging normative French-Canadian data on assessment and treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• French
• Québec
• speech sound disorder
• nonlinear phonology
• assessment
• intervention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

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Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Timing units refer to the slots occupied by segments. A timing unit match for a cluster means that two consonants are produced, whether or not they match the target segmentally.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa [148689].