Selected Phonological Patterns
This page describes phonological patterns that young children commonly demonstrate. This list is not exhaustive. These phonological patterns usually resolve as children get older. Children usually acquire most speech sounds by age 5 (Crowe & McLeod, 2020; McLeod & Crowe, 2018), but the age at which the phonological patterns resolve can vary greatly in each child—especially if a child uses multiple dialects (see, e.g., Pearson et al., 2009). Phonological patterns that persist, or phonological patterns that are atypical, lead to a diagnosis of phonological disorders.
Multilingual children could experience these same error patterns if they occur in the child’s languages. Dialectal varieties of a language that do not produce certain sounds would not be considered an error pattern. Speech-language pathologists would not use the listed terms to describe those dialectal rules. For example, a speech-language pathologist does not use the term “final-consonant deletion” for a Spanish-speaking child who does not produce final /s/ in their dialect. Therefore, consult the references below to confirm the populations included in order to determine a phonological pattern’s likely age of elimination. See ASHA’s Practice Portal page on Speech Sound Disorders: Articulation and Phonology.
|
Assimilation (consonant harmony) |
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|---|---|---|---|
|
Process (error pattern) |
Description |
Example |
Likely age (years) of elimination 1, 2, 3
|
|
Velar assimilation |
A non-velar sound changes to a velar sound due to the presence of a neighboring velar sound. |
/kæk/ for “tack”; /ɡʌk/ for “duck” |
3 |
|
Nasal assimilation |
A non-nasal sound changes to a nasal sound due to the presence of a neighboring nasal sound. |
/mʌni/ for “funny”; /nʌni/ for “bunny” |
3 |
|
Substitution |
|||
|
Process (error pattern) |
Description |
Example |
Likely age (years) of elimination 1, 2, 3 |
|
Fronting |
A sound made in the back of the mouth (velar) is replaced with a sound made in the front of the mouth (e.g., alveolar). |
/tæt/ for “cat”; /deɪt/ for “gate” |
4 |
|
Stopping |
A fricative and/or an affricate is replaced with a stop sound. |
/pʌn/ for “fun”; /ti/ for “see”; /du/ for “zoo”; /baɪn/ for “vine”; /tɔp/ for “shop”; /tɔp/ for “chop”; /dʌmp/ for “jump”; /dæt/ for “that” |
/f, s/ — 3 /z, v/ — 4 /ʃ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /ð/ — 5 |
|
Gliding |
A liquid (/ɹ/, /l/) is replaced with a glide (/w/, /j/). |
/wæbɪt/ for “rabbit”; /jɛjo/ for “yellow” |
6–7 |
|
Deaffrication |
An affricate is replaced with a fricative. |
/ʃɪp/ for “chip”; /ʒɔb/ for “job” |
4 |
|
Syllable structure |
|||
|
Process (error pattern) |
Description |
Example |
Likely age (years) of elimination 1, 2, 3 |
|
Cluster reduction |
A consonant cluster is simplified into a single consonant. |
/tɔp/ for “stop”; /kin/ for “clean” |
With /s/ — 5 Without /s/ — 4 |
|
Weak-syllable deletion |
An unstressed or a weak syllable in a word is deleted. |
/nænə/ for “banana”; /teɪto/ for “potato” |
4 |
|
Final-consonant deletion |
The final consonant of a word is deleted. |
/bʌ/ for “bus”; /no/ for “nose”; /tɹi/ for “treat” |
3 |
References
Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children’s English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155–2169. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168
McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100
Pearson, B. Z., Velleman, S. L., Bryant, T. J., & Charko, T. (2009). Phonological milestones for African American English–speaking children learning Mainstream American English as a second dialect. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 40(3), 229–244. https://doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461(2008/08-0064)
References for Likely Age of Elimination
1 Bowen, C. (2011). Table 3: Elimination of phonological processes. Retrieved from https://www.speech-language-therapy.com/ on December 18, 2024.
2 Peña-Brooks, A., & Hegde, M. N. (2015). Assessment and treatment of speech sound disorders in children: A dual-level text. Pro-Ed.
3 Shipley, K. G., & McAfee, J. G. (2016). Assessment in speech-language pathology: A resource manual. Cengage Learning.
Additional Resources
Babatsouli, E. (2019). A phonological assessment test for child Greek. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 33(7), 601–627. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2019.1569164
Bernhardt, B. M. (n.d.). Phonological development tools and cross-linguistic phonology project. The University of British Columbia. https://phonodevelopment.sites.olt.ubc.ca/
