South African English Speech Development: Preliminary Data from Typically Developing Preschool Children in Cape Town

ABSTRACT

English is one of eleven official languages in South Africa, but there is limited information on children’s acquisition of English and other languages in this context. This paper describes speech development in 308 children aged 3;0–5;11 acquiring South African English in Cape Town. The study focused on English speech acquisition, although children were grouped by language background into monolingual, isiXhosa bilingual, Afrikaans bilingual and trilingual groups. The primary objective was to describe phonetic and phonological acquisition (percentage consonants and vowels correct (PCC and PVC); phonetic inventory and phonological processes) by children’s age and language background. As a secondary objective we described the prevalence of speech disorders in the sample using Dodd’s (2005) framework. The Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology was used to assess participants with modified scoring criteria appropriate for the context. Phonological processes and inventories were broadly comparable to normative data for English speech acquisition documented in the literature, and a progression was observed with increasing age. PCC and PVC were similar for children within age bands despite different language backgrounds. Bilingual children showed aspects of English phonological development linked to their L1, and some differences in phonological processes were observed. Approximately 9% of children (n = 28) had speech difficulties, with 75% of this group having a speech delay. The study highlights the importance of adapting speech assessments for use with populations that differ from the originally intended audience. This work contributes to knowledge of typical speech development in South Africa and in multilingual contexts more generally.

KEYWORDS:

• South African English
• isiXhosa
• Afrikaans
• speech sound disorders
• assessment

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support of fourth year BSc (Speech Pathology) students who collected data for this project: Savannah Senior, Aimee De Jager, Amy van der Merwe, Emily Danvers, Juliette Reynders, Chane Naidoo, Natania Esterhuizen (2015); Michael Geiger, Leigh Davids, Varisha Hutheram, Adilah Allie, Wafeeqah Majiet, Candice O’Neill (2016); Amakhoe Goabas, Nicole Motani, Sheridan Pollet, Herlaine Fynn, Camryn Terblanche, Natasha Wood, Cari Klipp, Aqeelah Adams (2017).

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

Michelle Pascoe and Olebeng Mahura are funded by the National Research Foundation of South Africa.