Phonological development: a normative study of British English‐speaking children

Abstract

This paper reports a normative study on the phonological development of British English-speaking children. Speech samples of 684 children, aged between 3;0 and 6;11 years, randomly selected from nurseries and schools in eight different areas throughout the UK, were collected and analysed to obtain normative data. This paper reports on two aspects of speech development: the age of acquisition of sounds (phonetic acquisition) and the age that error patterns were suppressed (phonemic acquisition). It discusses the effects of age, gender and socio-economic status on speech sound development. The study found that older children had more accurate production and fewer error patterns in their speech. It found no gender differences in the younger age groups. However, in the oldest age group, it found the phonological accuracy measures of girls' better than boys. It found no significant effects of socio-economic status on any of the phonological accuracy measures.

Fonologia, processamento auditivo e educação infantil: influências ambientais em crianças de 4 anos a 5 anos e 11 meses

“…Regarding the age of the participants, most of the sample consisted of children aged 5 years; they presented poorer results when compared to participants aged 4 years. This finding does not corroborate studies that show that the higher the age the better is the phonological suitability [17][18][19] . This research corroborates a national study that showed that children aged five years presented higher prevalence of phonological deviations when compared to the four years old group 20 .…”

Development of The Viking Speech Scale to classify the speech of children with cerebral palsy

“…The scale contains only one set of levels; no age bands have been created. However, it is acknowledged that at four years children's phonological system, and potentially their intelligibility, will still be developing (Dodd, Holm, Hua, & Crosbie, 2003) and in the introduction to the scale examples of developmental speech substitutions are given. The scale may be easier to apply with older children, whose speech has matured.…”

Speech characteristics of 8-year-old children: Findings from a prospective population study

“…Whilst a definitive cut off age for the definition of PSD has not been agreed, it has generally been applied to children of approximately age 8 and above. This is logical given that speech acquisition is generally considered to be complete by this age (Dodd, Holm, Hua & Crosbie, 2003;James, 2001;Smit, 1993aSmit, , 1993b. Moreover, Shriberg, Fourakis, Hall, Karlsson, Lohmeier, McSweeny et al (2010) justify a cut off between age 8 and 9 on the basis that children whose speech disorder continues beyond this age are small in number but more at risk for long term persistence and associated sequelae, sometimes into adulthood.…”