Acquisition of /s/ clusters in Croatian speaking children with phonological disorders

Abstract

The authors studied the acquisition of nine #sC clusters in 30 Croatian-speaking phonologically disordered children, aged between 3;8–7;0 years, by analysing their renditions of target words elicited in response to visual stimuli presented on a computer screen. Results did not support the idea that a greater jump in sonority from C1 to C2 would translate into a greater accuracy of productions. The percentage of correct realizations was high for /s/+nasal combinations (mean 85%), and for approximants /j/ and /ʋ/ (mean 77%) and stops (mean 73%), with significantly lower scores for liquids /l/ and /r/ (mean 47%). The difference between SSP-violating and SSP-following targets was not significant, and neither was the homorganicity of the target. The most frequent errors were substitution of the first consonant (i.e. /s/) while keeping the second one. These children are significantly different from the typically-developing group in two ways. First, retention of the first or the second consonant is not as frequent, and, second, /l/ is almost as difficult as /r/, as opposed to the typically-developing children who had no more difficulty with /l/ than with the other two approximants. Although cluster reduction is not the most common process in erroneous productions, the patterns emerged here generally agree with the findings from other languages.

Keywords:

• s-clusters
• Croatian
• phonological disorders

Acknowledgements

This research was financed in part by grant number 130-0000000-3096 of the Ministry for Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia. The authors wish to thank the children, parents, and teachers of ‘Cvrčak’ kindergarten, Zagreb. The help of Ms Iskra Tomić with recordings and of Mr Marko Štengl with statistical analyses is greatly appreciated.

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