Phonological Development

Phonological development entails the acquisition of knowledge about the sound system of the ambient language for the purpose of comprehending that language and producing it intelligibly. The process of phonological development is long and complex because the sound system of any language is organized in a hierarchical fashion across many interacting tiers so that the child must acquire many types of knowledge. If a child’s acquisition of even a simple word such as doggies (in English) is considered, it is clear that several tiers of phonological structure are invoked: There are two syllables produced with a strong–weak stress pattern; the syllables are composed of segments, specifically consonants (C) and vowels (V), slotted into onset (/d/, /ɡ/), nucleus (/ɑ/, /i/), and coda (/ɡ/, /z/) positions within ...