Sonority difference clusters Offline#

Affricates generated the highest number of errors, a finding that strengthens the singleton status of /ts/ and /dz/ in Greek. Overall, children’s performance was in line with the sonority sequencing principle (SSP) consonant clusters that display a maximal rise in sonority were easier to manipulate compared to clusters with minimal sonority difference or SSP-violating clusters.

Sonority difference clusters Offline#

To that end, 40 preschool and first grade children carried out an offline metaphonological task that involved the initial consonant deletion of two-consonant clusters.

In this study, we investigate whether sonority theory can account for the developmental patterns of phoneme awareness skills in Greek. Phonological awareness is closely related to reading acquisition and it is often the focus of the therapy services provided by speech-language pathologists and special education teachers. Finally, /ts/ showed a distinct temporal pattern relative to the stop-/s/ clusters /ps/ and /ks/, similar to what has been reported for productions of Greek adults. Moreover, errors for the /s/-stop sequences and /ts/ primarily involved stop substitutions, whereas errors for /ps/ and /ks/ were more variable and often involved fricative substitutions, a pattern which may have a perceptual explanation. Results showed greater accuracy for the /s/-stop relative to the stop-/s/ sequences, but no difference in accuracy between /ts/, which is usually analyzed as an affricate in Greek, and the other stop-/s/ sequences. One problem with studies that have compared the acquisition of SSP-obeying and SSP-violating clusters is that the component sounds in the two types of sequences were different.This paper examines the acquisition of initial /s/-stop and stop-/s/ sequences by sixty Greek children aged 2 through 5 years. Previous work on children's acquisition of complex sequences points to a tendency for affricates to be acquired before clusters, but there is no clear evidence of a difference in order of acquisition between clusters with /s/ that violate the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), such as /s/ followed by stop in onset position, and other clusters that obey the SSP. Thus, even though the aetiology of speech impairment in both groups was organic in nature, diverse linguistic and situational contexts might have led to different distribution of processes across languages. The SNHL group, on the other hand, employed nearly the same types of processes in L1 and L2. The TBI group applied a higher number of more radical processes in L2 (e.g., consonant deletions) than in L1. However, we observed considerable differences in the distribution of processes across languages between the two groups. The results indicate that both populations applied a higher number of processes in L2. The subjects represented different levels of L2 proficiency, however there were no highly proficient users. The aim of this paper is to analyse how application of phonological processes in L1 (Polish) and L2 (English) will differ in two clinical populations: (1) dysarthric individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and (2) individuals with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Individuals with distorted speech production and individuals with distorted sound perception have been both reported to apply phonological processes (sound simplifications which may be defined as speech errors) in both first language (L1) acquisition and second language (L2) learning despite their different linguistic and situational contexts.