Phonological process decline from 212 to 8 years

J. COMMUN. DISORD. 23 (1990), 205-217

PHONOLOGICAL TO 8 YEARS

PROCESS DECLINE FROM 2;

JOANNE E. ROBERTS, MARGARET BURCHINAL, MARIANNA M. FOOT0

and

Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

The phonological development of 145 children between the ages of 24 and 8 years was examined. Speech was assessed annually using a standardized articulation test and analyzed for the occurrence of both common and uncommon phonological processes. A marked decline in process usage was observed between the ages of 2t and 4 years and infrequent process usage was observed after the age of 4. Uncommon processes were used infrequently, even at 21 years. No sex differences were found. Race differences were found with respect to isolated processes.

INTRODUCTION During the past 15 years, the study of phonological development has shifted from the analysis of individual speech sound errors toward the analysis of phonological processes that are rule-governed simplifications of adult speech (Ingram, 1976). This index appears to provide a more parsimonious description of the systematic patterns in children’s acquisition of phonology than a focus on individual speech sound errors. While the emergence and use of phonological processes by children under the age of 3 years has been extensively studied (e.g., Fey and Gandour, 1982; Ingram, 1974; Leonard, Newhoff, and Mesalam, 1980; Preisser, Hodson, and Paden, 1988; Schwartz, Leonard, Wilcox, and Folger, 1980; Shibamoto and Olmstead, 1978; Vihman and Greenlee, 1987), fewer studies have described developmental patterns of process usage after age 3 (Grunwell, 1981; Haelsig and Madison, 1986; Ingram, 1976; Christensen, Veach, and Webster, 1980; Klein, 1985; Lowe, Knutson, and Monson, 1985). Nevertheless, patterns of process usage after the age of 3 may help speech-language pathologists distinguish between normal and delayed/deviant speech development. Address correspondence to Joanne E. Roberts, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Frank Porter Graham Development Center, CB. No. 8180, 105 Smith Level Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-8180. 0 1990 by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010

20.5 0021-9924/90/$3.50

206

J. E. ROBERTS

et al.

Attempts have been made to construct a profile of normal process usage for children 3 years and older. Case studies of individual children have been used most frequently to provide examples of normal phonological patterns of children older than 3 years (e.g., Ingram, 1976). Grunwell (1981) attempted to synthesize these case studies to construct a profile of phonological development in children between the ages 9 months and 5 years. While providing a profile of increasing speech proficiency, it is difficult to generalize from case studies to the general population. Other studies have avoided the difficulties of generalizing from case studies to the general population by using larger numbers of children to identify normal process usage (Haelsig and Madison, 1986; Ingram et al., 1980; Lowe. Knutson, and Monson, 1985). Ingram et al. (1980), for example. studied word-initial fricatives and affricates in children between 2 and 6 years, while Lowe, Knutson, and Monson (1985) focused on the process of fronting in children 24-44 years. Haelsig and Madison (1986) examined a wider variety of processes in a group of 50 normal children between ages 3 and 5 years. All studies suggested that there was a major change in process usage prior to age 4 and little change after that age. Although these previous studies provide important information on normal phonological development, there is a need to replicate the suggested developmental patterns with larger groups of children. While previous research has begun to provide a consistent picture of phonological development with respect to common phonological process use, there is a clear need for studies that examine the use of uncommon processes by children whose speech is considered to be developing normally. Previous studies of phonological acquisition have focused primarily on the occurrence of common phonological processes that account for the majority of errors produced by young children. These common phonological processes include fronting, syllable deletion/reduction, reduplication, assimilation, stopping, liquid gliding, and cluster reduction (Ingram, 1976). Studies of children whose phonological development is considered disordered have found that these children frequently use certain uncommon or idiosyncratic processes, in addition to a higher incidence of common processes (e.g., Dunn and Davis, 1983; Hodson and Paden, 1981; Leonard, 1985). Examples of uncommon processes include deletion of initial consonants, deletion of medial consonants, metathesis, apicalization, backing, labialization shift, addition of a consonant, and deaffrication. It appears necessary to examine the incidence of these uncommon processes in the repetoire of non-speech-disordered children before their true significance in the diagnosis of speech disorders can be understood. While the presence of these unusual processes is often interpreted as evidence that a child’s phonological system is delayed or deviant, some researchers have suggested that these idiosyncratic or uncommon pro-

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207

cesses may also be found to some degree in children whose phonological development is considered normal (Hodson and Paden, 1981; Stoel-Gammon and Dunn, 1985). Two alternative explanations are possible. It could be that uncommon processes are used often by children whose phonological development is classified as disordered but are used rarely by children developing a normal phonological system. Alternatively, it may be that all children use these processes at some point in their development, but that children with speech disorders persist in their use longer than children exhibiting normal phonological development. In order to address these issues, a study of phonological development in normally developing children should provide an indication of the developmental pattern of these uncommon processes. Based on this review of past studies, a need for further large-scale studies of phonological patterns to validate the findings of previous smaller-scale studies is needed. In addition, the developmental patterns of uncommon process usage in children whose phonology is not considered delayed or deviant need investigation. The present quasilongitudinal study presents data concerning the occurrence of phonological processes in 148 children who are between the ages of 2; and 8 years. The data are discussed in terms of individual common and uncommon phonological process usage by the group. Race and sex differences were also examined.

METHOD Subjects The sample consisted of 145 subjects who were part of a larger ongoing longitudinal study designed to assess the effects of high-quality daycare enrichment on cognitive, social, and linguistic development. The children were recruited at birth between 1972 and 1985. The backgrounds of these children ranged from lower socioeconomic status to working or middle class status. Subjects born between 1972 and 1980 had been randomly assigned to the daycare treatment group or to control groups, while children born after 1980 were assigned to the daycare group. When they were between the ages of 6 weeks and 3 months, children entered the longitudinal study in cohorts of approximately 20 children every l-2 years. Children in the daycare group attended a university-affiliated, educationally oriented daycare center five full days a week, 50 weeks a year, until they entered kindergarten. Children’s cognitive, linguistic, and social development was followed through the early elementary school years. [See Ramey, Bryant, Sparling, and Wasik (1985) and Ramey, Yeates, and Short (1984) for details concerning the study design and intervention program.

J. E. ROBERTS et al.

208 Table 1.

Demographic Characteristics

Gender of child Males Females Race of child Black White Other Risk status At risk Comparison group Treatment Enrichment daycare Control group Marital status of mother Married Single Unreported Educational level of motheP of father’

n n

80 65

n n n

113 31 1

n II

103 42

n n

96 49

n n n

55 83 7

M M

12.1(3.2)b 12.7(3.5)

” Based on 138 of 145 mothers. ’ Standard deviation in parentheses. ’ Based on 128 of 145 fathers.

See Table 1 for a summary sample .]

of the demographic

characteristics

of the

Speech Measures Data Collection. In the fall of each year (when the children were between the ages of 24 and 8 years), speech was tested in an IAC soundtreated room. Because children were at different ages when the study began, 13 children were tested six times, 24 were tested five times, 24 four times, 37 three times, 13 two times, and 32 one time. Testing occurred if a child had passed a hearing screening at 15 dB across the frequencies 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz and at 20 dB at 500 Hz. Speech was assessed using the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation (Goldman and Fristoe, 1969), to which six additional words (“spoon,” “sky,” “present,” “green, ” “smoke,” and “glass”) had been added in order to get a more detailed indication of the development of consonant clusters. Responses on the articulation tests were transcribed live using narrow transcription symbols (Shriberg and Kent, 1982). Over the six-year period, two master’s level speech-language pathologists and three graduate assistants enrolled in a master’s level program in speech-language pathology collected the data. One examiner participated in five years of data

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collection. Interexaminer agreement was 88% for narrow transcription.

209

based on 10% of the test sessions

Phonological Process Scoring. Each word was coded for phonological processes according to Ingram’s (1976) classification. The following black dialect features described by Williams and Wolfram (1977) and Labov (1972) as characteristic of black dialect were not coded for phonological processes: 8 --, f (M, F position); 0 + t (I); d + 8 (I); d + d (I, M); v + b (I, M); and nd3 + n (F). The total number of occurrences of each of the following phonological processes common to the speech of young children was summed for each child: deletion of final consonants, consonant cluster reduction, fronting, stopping, liquid gliding, reduplication, assimilation, and syllable deletion/reduction. In addition, the total number of occurrences of each of the following uncommon processes was summed for each child: addition of a unit, apicalization, backing, deaffrication, deletion of initial consonants, deletion of medial consonants, labialization shift, and metathesis.

Data Analysis A percentage of occurrence for each phonological process was computed for each child by dividing the total number of occurrences for each process by the total number of opportunities for the occurrence of that process. The speech data of all subjects were analyzed first by calculating medians, means, and standard deviations for all individual processes. Because previous researchers have suggested that marked change in phonological process usage occurs until age 4 years (Grunwell, 1981; Haelsig and Madison, 1986; Ingram, 1976), data are presented in 6-month intervals until age 4 and then in l-year intervals after age 4. Spearman rank-order correlations were also calculated between the percentage of occurrence for each phonological process and age within each age interval. Finally, ttests compared process usage at each time interval with respect to race and sex. RESULTS Tables 2 and 3 describe the occurrences of common and uncommon phonological processes, respectively, between 24 and 8 years of age. Medians and means are both presented because even within these age intervals process usage tended to be skewed. A marked decrease in many of the common and uncommon process usages between the ages of 2f and 4 was exhibited in this sample. After age 4, all common phonological processes appeared to be stable with only a slight decline across age. The only processes not exhibiting this general trend were those rarely observed at

J. E. ROBERTS et al.

210

Table 2. Mean and Median Phonological Processes

Percentage

of Occurrennce

for Common

Age (in years) 4 5 3 7 6 8 28 3t (N = 33) (N = 48) (N = 29) (N = 46) (N = 73) (N = 89) (N = 74) (N = 71) Cluster reduction [20]” Md M

70.0 67.7 21.4

45.0 41.9 26.1

5.1 5.8 6.6

3.8 7.5 10.8

SD Deletion of final consonants Md M

SD Reduplication Md M

0.0

0.0

0.0

6.5 12.1

2.8 8.0

2.7 5.7

0.0 4.9 8.4

1.3 3.2 6.5

0.0 2.4 3.3

0.0 2.7 5.2

0.0 1.1 2.9

0.0 1.3 2.6

0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.1 0.5

0.0 0.0 0.3

0.0 0.0 0.3

0.0 0.0 0.2

0.0 0.0 0.0

[32]

0.0 0.3 0.6

0.0 2.8 3.4

0.0 2.3 4.7

0.0 1.3 2.8

0.0 0.7 1.8

0.0 0.5 1.5

0.0 0.3 1.1

0.0 0.3 1.1

0.0 0.1 0.7

23.1 24.5 17.0

7.7 11.7 12.9

7.7 8.0 9.3

0.0 4.7 9.2

0.0 4.5 8.7

0.0 2.7 7.6

0.0 1.4 5.9

0.0 1.0 2.6

13.6 18.3 16.9

4.6

0.0 5.5 10.9

0.0 2.7 5.2

0.0 1.6 4.4

0.0 1.2 2.9

0.0 0.1 0.7

0.0 0.3 1.2

0.0 2.0 4.1

0.0 1.9 3.3

0.0 0.8 1.9

0.0 0.5 1.4

0.0 0.2 0.7

0.0 0.1 0.6

0.0

0.0

0.1 0.4

0.2 0.7

0.0 0.1 0.6

0.0 0.1 0.6

0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0

SD Fronting [22] Md M

5.0 9.7 15.6

1551

SD Liquid gliding [lo] Md M

5.0

15.3 21.4

0.0 0.4 0.9

SD Syllable deletion/reduction Md M

20.0 24.7 21.0

8.1

SD 12.0 Stopping [35] Md 2.9 0.0 M 9.0 3.9 SD 15.1 7.7 Assimilation [35] Md M

0.0 0.1

SD

0.5

’ Total number

possible

[24]

in brackets.

any age (i.e., reduplication, syllable deletion/reduction, assimilation, deletion of initial consonants, addition of a consonant, metathesis, backing, deaffrication, apicalization, and labialization shift). The developmental trend of marked decline in process usage during the preschool period, followed by fairly stable usage was also examined by correlating process usage with age within each age interval. Included in these correlations were processes that exhibited age effects (i.e., defined to be those processes at age 24 years with M 2 5%). Table 4 lists these

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Table 3. Mean and Median Percentage of Occurrence for Uncommon Phonological Processes Age (in years)

31

4 (N = 46)

5 (N = 73)

0.0 0.1 0.8

0.0 0.1 0.5

0.0 0.1 0.9

0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.3

1.4 2.5 3.1

0.0 1.9 2.7

0.0 1.9 2.6

0.0 0.9 1.7

0.0 0.8 1.5

0.0 0.2 0.4

0.0 0.2 0.3

0.0 0.1 0.3

0.0 0.1 0.3

0.0 0.1 0.2

0.0 0.1 0.2

0.0 0.0 0.3

0.0 0.1 0.4

0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.3 0.5

0.0 0.0 0.2

0.0 0.1 0.3

0.0 0.1 0.3

0.0 0.1 0.4

0.0 0.1 0.3

0.0 0.1 0.3

0.0 12.5 19.3

0.0 6.9 18.1

0.0 7.6 17.1

0.0 1.8 7.6

0.0 0.7 3.5

0.0 0.5 2.7

0.0 0.7 3.4

0.0 0.9 1.7

0.0 0.6 1.3

0.0 0.7 1.6

0.0 0.5 1.4

0.0 0.2 0.8

0.0 0.0 0.4

0.0 0.0 0.4

0.0 0.5 0.7

0.0 0.3 0.6

0.0 0.1 0.4

0.0 0.3 0.6

0.0 0.1 0.4

0.0 0.1 0.3

0.0 0.1 0.3

24 (N = 33)

(N :

Deletion of initial Md 0.0 M 0.7 SD 1.2 Deletion of medial Md 5.4 M 6.6 SD 6.1 Addition of a unit Md 0.0 M 0.5 SD 0.6 Metathesis [51] Md 0.0 M 0.0 SD 0.0 Backing [93] Md 0.0 M 0.1 SD 0.4 Deaffrication [6] Md 0.0 M 19.7 SD 30.5 Apicalization [29] Md 0.0 M 1.0 SD 1.8 Labialization [81] Md 0.0 M 0.8 SD 1.2

48)

(N = 29)

consonants 0.0 0.2 0.8 consonants 2.7 5.3 5.4 [ 1571 0.0 0.4 0.5

[35]” 0.0 0.3 0.9 [37] 2.7 2.9 3.0

7 8 6 (N = 89) (N = 74) (N = 71)

’ Total number possible in brackets.

correlations. Several phonological processes were significantly correlated with age during the six-month age intervals between 2f and 4:(a) cluster reduction and stopping at 2; and 31 years, and (b) deletion of medial consonants, deletion of final connsonants, and liquid gliding at 3f years. The only process exhibiting a linear trend after the age of 4 years was deletion of medial consonants, which correlated with age at 5 years. As a criterion for determining if a process is occurring within a particular age group, the number of subjects using a process 20% of the time

212

J. E. ROBERTS

Table 4.

Correlations

et al.

Between Phonological Processes and Age Age (in years)

2$ (N = 33)

34 4 5 3 6 7 8 (N = 48) (N = 29) (N = 46) (N = 73) (N = 89) (N = 74) (h’ = 71)

Cluster

reduction ~ .50 -.I8 Deletion of final consonants - .33 - .06 Stopping ~ .44 .I0 Liquid gliding -.lO - .I4 Deletion of medial consonants ~ .23 .Ol

- .58

- .24

- .07

- .Ol

.I1

.03

- .45

- .I9

- .02

.02

~ .06

- .09

- .39

- .06

.Ol

.02

- .04

- .22

-.37

- .I7

~ .19

- .03

.03

- .I4

- .31

.04

.I4

~ .03

~ .48

IO

or more was tallied. McReynolds and Elbert (1981) have suggested that if a child uses a process at least 20% of the time and the process had at least four opportunities to occur, the process should be considered part of the child’s phonological repertoire. Table 5 lists, for each age interval, the proportion of children who used common and uncommon processes (i.e., the proportion of children who exhibited the process in more than 20% of words measuring that process). Processes that none of the children used according to the 20% criterion (i.e., reduplication, assimilation, deletion of initial consonants, addition of a consonant, metathesis, backing, apicalization, and labialization shift) are not included in the table. Two age cutoffs were examined in the data in Table 5. First, the age at which less than 25% of the sample used a particular process 20% of the time or more was taken as the age at which this process was beginning to drop out for the group. Deletion of final consonants, syllable deletion/reduction, stopping, and deletion of medial consonants were used by less than 25% of the sample before 24 years, when data collection began. Liquid gliding, fronting, and deaffrication were dropping out for the sample between 24 and 3 and cluster reduction between 34 and 4. Second, a more stringent cutoff, the age at which a process occurred in less than IO% of the sample, was interpreted as the age at which the process had dropped out for the group. As when using the 25% cutoff, deletion of final consonants, syllable deletion/reduction, and deletion of medial consonants were used by less than 10% of the sample by 24 years. Stopping had dropped out between 29 and 3 years, fronting and deaffrication between 3 and 3$, liquid gliding between 4 and 5, and cluster reduction between 6 and 7. Independent group r-tests for all processes were run to examine sex and race differences in the occurrence of all common and uncommon processes for each age group. These tests were interpreted as significant

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213

Table 5. Percentage of Subjects using Common and Uncommon Phonological Processes on More than 20% of the Opportunities for Occurrence Age (in years)

21

7 8 3t (N : 48) (N = 29) (N ” 46) (N 1 73) (N ” 89) (N = 74) (N = 71)

(N = 33) Common processes

Cluster reduction [20]” 100.0 83.3 55.2 Deletion of final consonants [32] 9.1 8.3 6.9 Syllable reduction/deletion [24] 0.0 2.1 0.0 Liquid gliding [lo] 60.6 16.7 13.8 Fronting [22] 39.4 16.7 6.9 Stopping [35] 15.2 6.3 3.4 Uncommon

23.9

15.1

11.2

2.7

4.2

2.2

0.0

2.2

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

10.9

6.8

3.4

1.4

0.0

0.0

1.4

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

[37] 0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

6.9

8.7

2.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

processes

Deletion of medial consonants 6.1 2.1 Deaffrication [6] 27.3 18.8 a Total number

of processes

possible

in brackets.

only when significant differences appeared across several ages. There were no significant sex differences for any common or unncommon processes in any age group. For race, differences were found only for deletion of final consonants at all age intervals between 2f and 7 years and for deletion of medial consonants at ages 2;, 3, and 3if years. A summary of the means for these two processes is presented in Table 6.

DISCUSSION This study examined prospectively the phonological development of normal children between the ages of 21 and 8 years. The results suggest that children’s use of common phonological processes shows the most dramatic decline between the ages of 2f and 4 years. The most commonly occurring processes during this time are deletion of final consonants, cluster reduction, fronting, stopping, and liquid gliding. After age 4, cluster reduction and liquid gliding are used less frequently, and deletion of final consonants, fronting, and stopping occur rarely. There is also much less change in process usage between the ages of 4 and 8 years. These de-

214

J. E. ROBERTS

Table 6. Mean Percentage Consonant by Race

of Occurrence

for Deletion

et al.

of Final and Medial

Age (in years) 21 4 5 6 I 8 3 3t (N = 33) (N = 48) (N = 29) (N = 46) (N = 73) (N = 89) (N = 74) (N = 71) Deletion

offinal consonants

Black M SD White M SD Deletion Black M SD

9.3” 6.8

9.7” 12.0

8.3” 10.0

3.8” 7.1

2.9” 3.6

3.3” 5.6

1.3” 3.1

1.4 2.7

1.7 3.0

2.2 3.9

0.6 1.5

0.7 1.2

0.6 1.5

0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0

0.4 1.0

ofmedial consonants 8.9” 6.1

6.8” 5.5

3.9” 3.3

2.6 3.3

2.1 2.9

2.1 2.7

1.0 1.8

0.8 1.5

3.8 3.9

1.9 3.2

1.7 2.1

2.3 2.4

I .4 2.0

1.0 2.0

0.7 1.2

0.4

White M SD

1.1

’ Significant difference between Black and White at the .05 level.

velopmental patterns are consistent with the findings of previous research (Grunwell, 1981; Haelsig and Madison, 1986). By age 8, few common phonological processes of any type were found to occur. The correlations between process usage and age provide further evidence for the rapid decline in process usage before the age of 4. The pattern of negative correlations between age and the processes most frequently exhibited at the youngest ages (i.e., cluster reduction, stopping, deletion of final consonants, and liquid gliding) suggest that the processes are showing systematic age-related declines, even within the restricted range of age in the 6-month intervals. The findings of significant correlations and the overall pattern of negative correlations with age during 6month intervals between 2; and 4 years of age but not in the l-year intervals between 4 and 8 years of age show that these processes decline linearly during this early preschool period and then appear to be fairly stable during the later school-aged period. This developmental pattern of phonological process usage may be accounted for by examining the proportion of children using these processes 20% or more of the time combined with the medians, means, and standard deviations across time. There appears to be a subset of the sample who persist in their use of phonological processes past the age of 4, when the majority of the children have eliminated these processes from their phonological repertoire. The differential degree of persistence in phonological

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215

process usage, therefore, underscores the importance of considering individual differences when examining normal phonological development. Children between the ages of 24 and 8 years infrequently used all of the uncommon processes except deaffrication. A small number of children used deaffrication prior to age 4, yet after age 4 only two children used this process 20% of the time or more. It is possible that this finding was due to the limited opportunities (only six) for the occurrence of this process and the difficulty of one or two words in a subset of the sample. Further investigation of the reliability of this finding is necessary. These data also suggest that the issue of common and uncommon phonological process usage in young children developing speech normally may not be a useful distinction. For example, some of the processes (e.g., reduplication) defined as commonly occurring in young children did not occur with any frequency in this population. In contrast, processes defined as uncommon in normally developing speech (e.g., deletion of medial consonant) occurred with a higher frequency than some processes classified as common. Although it is possible that the infrequent common process do occur in children below the age of 29 years, further studies should consider whether the distinction of common versus uncommon as presently defined as accurate for children whose phonological system is developing normally. The finding of a racial difference in the use of deletion of final and medial consonants can probably be attributed to dialect differences. Although deletion of final and medial consonants was not described by researchers as a characteristic of southeastern black dialect (Williams and Wolfram, 1977), it perhaps should be coded as a dialect variant for this population. It should be kept in mind, however, that there are regional variations in dialect and that these deletions may not be a common dialect feature in all regions. The failure of this prospective investigation to find sex differences with respect to phonological process usage is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Roe and Milisen, 1942; Winitz, 1959). Other studies, however, have reported differences in sex (Dawson, 1929; Templin, 1963). The general consensus with respect to previous research concerning sex differences appears to be that, while there is a tendency for males to be more prone to speech disorders than females at various ages, sex is a negligible factor in the consideration of rate of phonological acquisition (Bemthal and Bankson, 1988). There are several clinical implications of this research. First, these data suggest that the use of most phonological processes should be infrequent by age 4. If large numbers of processes are being used after age 4, this may indicate delayed phonological development. On the other hand, after age 4, certain processes such as liquid gliding and cluster reduction may occur to some degree without suggesting any phonological disorder. Sec-

J. E. ROBERTS

216

et al.

ond, these data suggest that few uncommon phonological processes should occur after 2; years in children whose phonology is developing normally. Thus, when these processes are found, they should be considered as indicating the possibility of a phonological delay. Third, the issue of individual difference should be considered when assessing a child’s phonological competence. These data suggest that children below the age of 4 years developing phonology normally varied in their process usage. Therefore, clinicians should be aware of the degree to which normally developing children may differ in rate of phonological acquisition. In summary, this prospective study provides information useful in determining if a child’s phonological process usage is within the normal range. The study adds to previous literature by using a large number of children to examine a range of phonological processes. Fuuture research should include frequent testing of children beginning at younger ages in order to assess more completely the developmental decline in process usage. This research was supported in whole or in part by grants from the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center, Office of Special Education Programs (Departmennt of Education, GO08400664 and G008630131). and by Biomedical Research Support Grant Program, Division of Research Resources, NIH (BRSG 2 507 RR07072). We are grateful to Teri Webster and Brenda Perry, who collected and coded data.

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