Stress error patterns in English-speaking children's word productions

Abstract

This study examined the patterns of stress errors in English-speaking children's productions of multisyllabic words to determine whether they were consistent with the rule-based acquisition of stress. Children (aged 22–34 months) produced three-syllable novel and real words and four-syllable real words which varied across stress pattern. Children's productions were examined acoustically and perceptually. Results indicated significantly greater numbers of stress errors in SWS words and a tendency for greater numbers of stress errors in SWS words, findings consistent with the increased association of stress errors with exceptional forms. Additional findings indicated that stress errors were more frequent in imitated compared to spontaneous productions, and that stress errors may be associated with articulatory and phonetic-control factors. The relevance of these findings to disordered populations is explored in the discussion.