As verbal speech begins, so do phonological processes.
What are the phonological processes? Phonological processes are patterns of sound errors that typically developing children use to simplify speech as they learn to use verbal speech.
These simplifications of words are called phonological processes, and several of them are developmental. In the first four years, toddlers and preschoolers will use reduplication denasalization, assimilation, final consonant devoicing, final consonant deletion, stopping, fronting, cluster reduction, and weak syllable deletion.
Keep in mind that there are more phonological processes that can occur in speech development; however, for this episode, we are covering the first five that appear in verbal speech.
Reduplication occurs when a toddler repeats a complete syllable for a word. It is very similar to babbling. Reduplication is intentional; toddlers are able to apply a specific meaning to an object and label it. Toddlers progress through this phase of early speech development quickly and should not use reduplication (for every word) by the time they are 2 years old.
Denasalization occurs when a toddler replaces a nasal consonant (m, n, ng) with a non-nasal consonant.
Assimilation occurs when one consonant sound in a word sounds like another sound in the word.
Final Consonant Devoicing occurs when a sound typically voiced is replaced with an unvoiced sound at the end of the word.
Final Consonant Deletion: Final Consonant Deletion occurs when the toddler omits the final consonant sound in a word.
Stopping occurs when a fricative or affricate sound is replaced with a stop sound. Stop sounds are produced when a small amount of air is forced quickly through part of the oral cavity.
Fronting occurs when a velar sound is replaced with an alveolar sound.
Cluster reduction occurs when part of all of the phonemes in a cluster are omitted.
In weak syllable deletion, the unstressed syllable in a word is omitted. The weak syllable in a word is the syllable with the least emphasis; it can be at the beginning or middle of a word.
A phonological disorder occurs when phonological processes persist beyond the age when most typically developing children have stopped using them or when the processes used are much different than what would be expected.
Links mentioned in today's episode:
Babbling in Infants Podcast Episode
Communicate & Connect Handbook
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