Acquisition of the feature [+spread glottis] in Icelandic.

The feature [+spread glottis] ([+s.g.]) denotes that a speech sound is produced with a wide glottal aperture with audible voiceless airflow.

Frequency effects in Spanish phonological speech errors: Weak sources in the context of weak syllables and words.

The present study examines the effects of the frequency of phoneme, syllable, and word units in the Granada corpus of Spanish phonological speech errors. We computed several measures of phoneme and syllable frequency and selected the most sensitive ones, along with word (lexeme) frequency to compare the frequencies of source, target, and error units at the phoneme, syllable, and word levels. Results showed that phoneme targets have equivalent frequency to matched controls, whereas source phonemes are lower in frequency than chance (the Weak Source effect) and target phonemes (the David effect).

When codas trump onsets: an English-speaking child with atypical phonological development before and after intervention.

This case study presents an English-speaking preschooler with severely protracted phonological development (PPD) before and after two six-week blocks of intervention (36 sessions). Pre-treatment (3;8), he showed very low whole word, singleton consonant, vowel, and word shape matches. He had two major uncommon patterns: (1) higher accuracy for word-final consonants compared with word-initial (WI) and word-medial (WM); and (2) frequent substitution of onset consonants with glottals [h] or [ʔ].

When consonants resemble vowels: investigating protracted phonological development in Akan.

This paper addresses the phonology of an Akan-speaking child aged 5;3 with Protracted Phonological Development. His phonological system had many strengths, with most consonants accurate at least some of the time and with many long words, but with weaknesses that lead to a very low Whole Word Match. In addition to some difficulty with consonant and vowel sequences (leading to assimilation), there are issues relative to complex consonants that contain vowel features (consonants with secondary articulations, the labiopalatal glide, and /r/) and with syllabic consonants (nasals and /r/) that lead to deletion, epenthesis, and some extensive changes in output.

Idiosyncratic consonant clusters: a Farsi-speaking child with protracted phonological development.

This study presents a nonlinear phonological analysis of speech data from a Farsi-speaking child with protracted phonological development (aged 4;8) with very low accuracy on consonants. Results revealed some common phenomena (fricatives produced as stops; dorsals and non-anterior coronals produced as anterior coronals) and some uncommon phenomena (nasals produced as oral stops; voicing and devoicing of singleton obstruents in all word positions). These phenomena interacted in word-medial clusters to create an unusual sequence of two anterior-coronal or two bilabial stops, with C1 voiced and C2 voiceless, clusters which do not occur in the basic phonology of Farsi spoken by adults.

Individual profiles in protracted phonological development across languages: introduction to the special issue.

Although group studies provide necessary information about the range and frequency of phenomena in phonological development, individual profiles (case studies) can be used to describe entire phonological systems in detail. Profiles from different languages can highlight similarities and differences across languages that may be less obvious in group studies. The current issue presents profiles of children with protracted phonological development (PPD: speech sound disorders) from 16 languages (Akan, Kuwaiti Arabic, Bulgarian, Canadian English, Farsi, Canadian French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Japanese, Mandarin, Polish, European Portuguese, Slovenian, Granada Spanish, Swedish).

Consonants lost: a Swedish girl with protracted phonological development.

This paper addresses the phonology of a Swedish girl, aged 3 years 10 months, with extensive phonological difficulties that include an unusual phonological pattern. She had relatively well-developed phonological building blocks in terms of features, stress pattern and word length (number of syllables), but had extensive difficulties regarding syllable and word shapes, with frequent deletions of both segments and whole syllables. Word-initial position was dominated by non-continuant consonants, both voiced and voiceless, with extensive deletion.

Acquisition of variability in Akan Phonology: Labio-palatalized consonants and front rounded vowels.

This paper addresses how input variability in the adult phonological system is mastered in the output of young children in Akan, a Kwa language spoken in Ghana, involving variability between labio-palatalized consonants and front rounded vowels. The high-frequency variant involves a complex consonant which is expected to be mastered late, while the low-frequency variant involves a front rounded vowel which is expected to be mastered relatively early. Late mastery of complex consonants was confirmed.

Acquisition of consonants among typically developing Akan-speaking children: A preliminary report.

Purpose: Although Akan is one of the most widely spoken indigenous languages in Ghana, very little is known about children's phonological development. This paper investigates the development of consonants in Akan among typically developing children aged 3-5 years.

Method: A list of 103 Akan words was compiled, sampling the full range of prosodic structures, sound positions, features and segments, and controlling for word familiarity.

Phonetic Transcription for Speech-Language Pathology in the 21st Century.

The past few decades have seen rapid changes in speech-language pathology in terms of technology, information on speech production and perception, and increasing levels of multilingualism in communities. This tutorial provides an overview of phonetic transcription for the modern world, both for work with clients, and for research and training. The authors draw on their backgrounds in phonetics, phonology and speech-language pathology, and their crosslinguistic project in the phonological acquisition of children with typical versus protracted phonological development.

Word-initial rhotics in Slovenian 4-year-olds with typical versus protracted phonological development.

This paper describes word-initial (WI) rhotic cluster development in Slovenian 4-year-olds. Data for /l/ and WI singleton /r/ serve as comparisons. Participants were 19 children with typical development (TD) and 13 with more protracted phonological development (PPD).

Word-initial trill clusters in children with typical versus protracted phonological development: Bulgarian.

The current paper describes acquisition of word-initial (WI) trilled /r/ in clusters and as a singleton in 60 Bulgarian 3-5-year-olds with typically developing (TD) versus protracted phonological development (PPD). A native speaker audio-recorded and transcribed single-word responses to a picture-naming task (110 words) that included eight words with WI rhotic clusters and two with WI singleton /r/. Accuracy was significantly higher in the TD groups and for the PPD groups, by age.

Tap and trill clusters in typical and protracted phonological development: Conclusion.

The current issue examined acquisition of challenging segments in complex contexts: Taps/trills in word-initial clusters, plus related targets (/l/-clusters and singleton rhotics and /l/). Data were from preschool children with typical versus protracted phonological development (PPD) in Iceland, Sweden (Germanic), Portugal, Spain/Chile (Romance), Bulgaria, Slovenia (Slavic), and Hungary (Finno-Ugric). Results showed developmental group and age effects.

Tap and trill clusters in typical and protracted phonological development: Challenging segments in complex phonological environments. Introduction to the special issue.

The papers in this crosslinguistic issue address children's acquisition of word-initial rhotic clusters in languages with taps/trills, that is, the acquisition of challenging segments in complex environments. Several papers also include comparisons with singleton rhotics and/or /l/ as a singleton or in clusters. The studies are part of a larger investigation that uses similar methodologies across languages in order to enhance crosslinguistic comparability (Bernhardt and Stemberger, 2012, 2015).

A Spanish pilot investigation for a crosslinguistic study in protracted phonological development.

A crosslinguistic study is underway concerning children's protracted phonological development (i.e. speech sound disorders).

Neighbourhood effects on error rates in speech production.

Models of speech production differ on whether phonological neighbourhoods should affect processing, and on whether effects should be facilitatory or inhibitory. Inhibitory effects of large neighbourhoods have been argued to underlie apparent anti-frequency effects, whereby high-frequency default features are more prone to mispronunciation errors than low-frequency nondefault features. Data from the original SLIPs experiments that found apparent anti-frequency effects are analysed for neighbourhood effects.

Intervocalic consonants in the speech of English-speaking Canadian children with phonological disorders.

Acquisition of intervocalic consonants has been insufficiently studied, both in terms of subject numbers, and in terms of differentiating syllabification patterns from those involving vowel feature assimilation. The question has remained: are English intervocalic consonants syllable-initial (onsets), syllable-final (codas) or ambisyllabic? This study addresses these issues in the speech of 44 English-speaking Canadian children with phonological disorders. Intervocalic consonants resembled word-initial onsets in that they were deleted less often than word-final consonants.

Forum on intervocalic consonants in phonological development.

Intervocalic consonants have received far less attention in research on first language acquisition than consonants at the edges of words. Theories have predicted that intervocalic consonants may show special properties because they are in a special position in syllable structure (constituting both an onset, or syllable-initial consonant, and a coda, or syllable-final consonant) or because they are in a special environment (between vowels). This editorial provides an overview of the issues, a review of the acquisition literature on the subject, and an introduction to the five papers in this special volume.