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Research into English phonological development in typically developing children and children with phonological disorders has been occurring since the 1930s (e.g., Wellman et al., 1931; Hawk, 1936). There is limited information on phonological development in Latino children, particularly those who are monolingual Spanish speakers and bilingual (Spanish and English) speakers. Over the past 15 years, however, phonological information collected on monolingual Spanish speakers and bilingual (Spanish-English) speakers has increased greatly. This entry summarizes information on phonological development and disorders in Latino children, focusing on those who are Spanish-speaking. Spanish phonology and phonological development in typically developing Spanish-speaking children, Spanish-speaking children with phonological disorders, typically developing bilingual (Spanish-English) children, and bilingual (Spanish-English) children with phonological disorders will be reviewed.
There are five primary vowels in Spanish, the two front vowels, /i/ and /e/, and the three back vowels, /u/, /o/, and /a/. There are 18 phonemes in General Spanish (Núñez-Cedeño and Morales-Front, 1999): the voiceless unaspirated stops, /p/, /t/, and /k/; the voiced stops, /b/, /d/, and /g/; the voiceless fricatives, /f/, /x/, and /s/; the affricate, /t∫/; the glides, /w/ and /j/; the lateral, /l/; the flap //, the trill /r/; and the nasals, /m/, /n/, and //. The three voiced stops /b, d, g/ are in complementary distribution with the spirants [β] (voiced bilabial), [ð] (voiced interdental), and [] (voiced velar), respectively. The spirant allophones most generally occur intervocalically both within and across word boundaries (e.g., /dedo/ (finger) → [deðo]; /la boka/ (the mouth) → [la βoka]) and in word internal consonant clusters (e.g., // (to talk) → []).
The phonetic inventory of Spanish differs from that of English. Spanish contains some sounds that are not part of the English phonetic system, including the voiced palatal nasal [], as in [] (boy), the voiceless bilabial fricative [φ], as in [] (sick), the voiceless velar fricative [x], as in [relox] (watch), the voiced spirants [ß], as in [klaßo] (nail), and [], as in [] (lake), the alveolar trill [r], as in [pero] (dog), and the voiced uvular trill [R], as in [Roto] (broken).
As in English, there are a number of dialectal varieties associated with Spanish. In the United States, the two most prevalent dialect groups of Spanish are Southwestern United States (e.g., Mexican Spanish) and Caribbean (e.g., Puerto Rican Spanish) (Iglesias and Goldstein, 1998). Unlike English, in which dialectal variations are generally defined by alterations in vowels, Spanish dialectal differences primarily affect consonants. Specifically, fricatives and liquids (in particular /s/, //, and /r/) tend to show more variation than stops, glides, or the affricate.
Common dialectal variations include deletion and/or aspiration of /s/ (e.g., /dos/ (two) → [do] or [doh]); deletion of // (e.g., // (cut) → []); substitution of [l] or [i] for // (e.g., // → [/[]); and substitution of [x] or [R] for /r/ (e.g., /pero/ (dog) → [pexo/peRo]. It should be noted that not every feature is always evidenced in the same manner and that not every speaker of a particular dialect uses each and every dialectal feature.
Phonological Development in Monolingual Spanish-Speaking Children
Most of the developmental phonological data on Spanish have been collected from typically developing, monolingual children. Data from segment-based studies suggest that typically developing, preschool, Spanish-speaking children accurately produce most segments by age 3½ years (Maez, 1981). By 5 years, the following phonemes were found not to be mastered (produced accurately at least 90% of the time): /g/, /f/, /s/, //, //, and /r/ (e.g., de la Fuente, 1985; Anderson and Smith, 1987; Acevedo, 1993). By the time Spanish-speaking children reached first grade, there were only a few specific phones on which typically developing children were likely to show any errors at all: the fricatives [x], [s], and [ð], the affricate [t∫], the flap [], the trill [r], the lateral [l], and consonant clusters (Evans, 1974; M. M. Gonzalez, 1978; Bailey, 1982).
Studies examining phonological processes indicate that Spanish-speaking children have suppressed (i.e., are no longer productively using) the majority of phonological processes by the time they reach 3½ years of age (e.g., A. Gonzalez, 1981; Mann et al., 1992; Goldstein and Iglesias, 1996a). Commonly occurring phonological processes (percentages of occurrence greater than 10%) included postvocalic singleton omission, stridency deletion, tap/trill /r/, consonant sequence reduction, and final consonant deletion. Less commonly occurring processes (percentages of occurrence greater than 10%) were fronting (both velar and palatal), prevocalic singleton omission, assimilation, and stopping.
Although there have been quite a number of studies characterizing phonological patterns in typically developing Spanish-speaking children, this information remains sparse for Spanish-speaking children with phonological disorders. Goldstein and Iglesias (1993) examined consonant production in Spanish-speaking preschoolers with phonological disorders and found that all stops, the fricative [f], the glides, and the nasals were produced accurately more than 75% of the time. The spirants [β] and [ð], the affricate, the flap [], the trill [r], and the lateral [l] were produced accurately 50%–74% of the time. Finally, the fricative [s], the spirant [], and clusters were produced accurately less than 50% of the time.
Phonological development in Spanish-speaking preschool children with phonological disorders has also been examined (Meza, 1983; Goldstein and Iglesias, 1996b). Meza (1983) found that these children showed errors on liquids, stridents, and bilabials in more than 30% of possible occurrences. Goldstein and Iglesias (1996b) found that low-frequency phonological processes (percentages of occurrence less than 15%) were palatal fronting, final consonant deletion, assimilation, velar fronting, and weak syllable deletion. Moderate frequency processes (percentages of occurrence between 15% and 30% for three processes) were initial consonant deletion, liquid simplification, and stopping. The high-frequency process (percentages of occurrence greater than 30%) was cluster reduction. Other error types exhibited by children with phonological disorders that were not usually observed in typically developing, Spanish-speaking children were deaffrication, lisping, and backing.
Phonological Development in Bilingual (Spanish-English) Children
There is increasing evidence that the phonological systems of bilingual (English-Spanish) speakers develop somewhat differently from the phonological system of monolingual speakers of either language. Gildersleeve, Davis, and Stubbe (1996) and Gildersleeve-Neumann and Davis (1998) found that in English, typically developing, bilingual preschoolers showed an overall lower intelligibility rating, made more errors overall (on both consonants and vowels), distorted more sounds, and produced more uncommon error patterns than monolingual children of the same age. Gildersleeve, Davis, and Stubbe (1996) and Gildersleeve-Neumann and Davis (1998) also found higher percentages of occurrence (7%–10% higher) for typically developing, bilingual children (in comparison to their monolingual peers) on a number of phonological processes, including cluster reduction, final consonant deletion, and initial voicing. This discrepancy between monolingual and bilingual speakers, however, does not seem to be absolute across the range of phonological processes commonly exhibited in children of this age. Goldstein and Iglesias (1999) examined English and Spanish phonological skills in 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old, typically developing bilingual children and found that some phonological patterns (e.g., initial consonant deletion and deaffrication) were exhibited at somewhat lower rates in bilingual children with phonological disorders than has been reported for monolingual, Spanish-speaking children with phonological disorders (Goldstein and Iglesias, 1996b). Thus, although the average percentage-of-occurrence difference is not large between monolingual and bilingual speakers, the results indicate that bilingual children will not always exhibit higher percentages of occurrence on phonological processes than monolingual children.
Goldstein and Washington (2001) indicated that the phonological skills of 4-year-old bilingual children were similar to their monolingual counterparts; however, the substitution patterns used for the target sounds flap // and trill /r/ did vary somewhat between bilingual and monolingual speakers. For example, in bilingual children [l] was a common substitute for the trill, but it was a relatively rare substitute for the trill in monolingual children. All four studies also found that bilingual children exhibited error patterns found in both languages (e.g., cluster reduction) as well as those, like liquid gliding, that were typical in one language (English) but atypical in the other (Spanish).
Data from bilingual children with phonological disorders indicate that they exhibit more errors, lower rates of accuracy on consonants, and higher percentages of occurrence for phonological processes than either typically developing, bilingual children (Goldstein and Iglesias, 1999) or monolingual, Spanish-speaking children with phonological disorders (Goldstein and Iglesias, 1996b). The types of errors exhibited by the children, however, are similar regardless of target language (i.e., Spanish versus English). Specifically, bilingual children with phonological disorders showed higher error rates on clusters, fricatives, and liquids than other classes of sounds. Finally, percentages of occurrence for phonological processes were higher overall for bilingual children with phonological disorders than for monolingual, Spanish-speaking children with phonological disorders.
The number of Latino children who speak Spanish continues to increase. Developmental phonological data collected from typically developing, monolingual Latino children who speak Spanish indicate that by age 3½, they use the dialectal features of their speech community and have mastered the majority of sounds in the language. The phonological development of typically developing, bilingual (Spanish-English) speakers is somewhat different from that of monolingual speakers of either language.
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