Phonological processes in initial consonants of Putonghua in children in Jiangsu urban areas

Abstract

Objective: To explore the phonological processes in initial consonants of Putonghua-speaking children in Jiangsu urban areas. Methods: A status survey was applied. From December 2014 to September 2015, a stratified random sampling method was used to select 958 children aged 1 to 6 years with Putonghua as their mother tongue in the urban area of Nanjing, Changzhou, Yangzhou and Xuzhou to examine their phonological performance. Speech samples were collected by the method of picture naming. The children were divided into 9 age groups (1.5-<2.0, 2.0-<2.5, 2.5-<3.0, 2.5-<3.0, 3.0-<3.5, 3.5-<4.0, 4.0-<4.5, 5.0-<6.0, 6.0-<7.0 years). Descriptive analysis method was used to analyze the phonological processes in initial consonants at different age groups. Results: Among the 958 children, there were 482 boys and 476 girls. The age of the children was (3.8±1.4) years. The number of children in the 9 age groups (1.5-<2.0, 2.0-<2.5, 2.5-<3.0, 2.5-<3.0, 3.0-<3.5, 3.5-<4.0, 4.0-<4.5, 5.0-<6.0, 6.0-<7.0 years) is 100, 110, 110, 114, 114, 114, 111, 119, and 66, separately. The process of substitution was found in the speech of 701 children (73.2%), syllable structure simplification was found in 194 children (20.3%), distortion was found in 41 children (4.3%), and assimilation was found in 17 children (1.8%). Among these 4 types of processes, the occurrence of substitution was highest in all the age groups, ranging from 30.3% (20/66) to 94.5% (104/110). The occurrence of syllable structure simplification ranged from 27.3% (30/110) to 91.0% (91/100) in the age groups of 1.5-<3.0 years and 0.9% (1/114) to 7.9% (9/114) in the age groups of 3.0-<7.0 years. The occurrence of distortion ranged from 7.3% (8/110) to 19.1% (21/110) in the age groups of 1.5-<3.0 years and 0 (0/114) to 2.7% (3/111) in the age groups of 3.0-<7.0 years. The occurrence of assimilation was very low in all age groups, ranging from 0 (0/114) to 3.0% (3/100) among all age groups. For substitution, the occurrence order of mainly individual processes from high to low was listed as follows: retroflexion 35.4% (339/958), deretroflexion 31.6% (303/958), lateralization 27.9% (267/958), stopping 17.8% (171/958), backing 14.2% (136/958), palatalization 10.9% (104/958), fronting 10.6% (102/958), and nasalization 5.8% (56/958). From the 4.0-<4.5 years of age group onwards, the phonological processes in initial consonants all met suppression criteria (the occurrence of processes was reduced to<10%) except retroflexion, deretroflexion, and lateralization. Conclusions: The processes of syllable structure simplification and distortion mainly appears in the early stage of speech sound development, while substitution is the major form of phonological pattern in initial consonants found in developmental speech errors. By 4 years of age, phonological processes in initial consonants almost disappear. The remaining processes that persisted for a longer period of time are retroflexion, deretroflexion, and lateralization.