Junction in developmental speech disorder: A case study

Abstract

Although it is accepted that children with developmental speech disorders are harder to understand in continuous speech than in single word production, current phonological assessment procedures are concerned almost exclusively with single words, and their focus is primarily on the child's inability to signal paradigmatic segmental contrasts. This study presents a detailed phonological analysis of a child with a severe developmental speech disorder, whose speech is rhythmically disjointed and prosodically unusual. Focusing on syntagmatic phonological relationships rather than on paradigmatic systems, the analysis begins with properties of the sentence, i.e. phonological delimitation of the sentence/turn, and information focus. There follows a presentation of syntagmatic features of various types of syllable junction, within and between words. Throughout, the child's syntagmatic phonology is compared to that of adult English speakers, and that of children whose speech is developing normally, drawing on the small amount of research reported in the child phonology literature. Some tentative conclusions are drawn about the normal development of syntagmatic phonological relationships, and about this child's atypical development. It is suggested that a syntagmatic phonological analysis of the type presented here is a necessary precondition for planning appropriate therapy for the remediation of connected speech problems.

Key Words:

• Developmental speech disorder
• child phonology
• clinical phonology
• phonological assessment.