Children's Phonological Process

Many so-called phonological simplifying processes have been identified. In fact, there are far too many
to cover adequately in this article. However, I will provide some selected examples that will serve to
illustrate how phonological processes operate. We will consider two broad categories: (1) structural
simplifications, and (2) systemic simplifications.

1. Structural simplifications

Structural simplifications involve some alteration to the structure of a particular word. We will consider
three: reduplication, deletion, and cluster reduction.

a. Reduplication

Reduplication occurs whenever the initial CV syllable in a multisyllabic word is repeated.

Consider the word bottle said as bobo. Other examples include biscuit being said as bibi, and water
being said as wawa.

b. Deletion

A simple way to alter the structure of a word is to omit particular speech segments. There are two main
speech segments that are typically deleted: (1) consonants, and (2) weak syllables.

-Consonant deletion

Consonant deletion occurs whenever a consonant in syllable-initial or syllable-final position is omitted.

Children may delete sounds at the beginning of words (initial consonant deletion), e.g. cat becomes at,
boat becomes oat or at the ends of words (final consonant deletion), e.g. lid becomes li, cup becomes
cu.

Consonant deletion is a typical phonological process for children between the ages of 2;00-3;06 years.

- Weak syllable deletion

Weak syllable deletion occurs whenever the unstressed or weak syllable of a multi-syllabic word is
omitted.

In this process whole syllables are deleted. These are typically unstressed syllables (e.g. the ‘ba’ in
banana; the ‘to’ in octopus). So, for example, banana may become nana; octopus may become ocpus.

This is a typical process In children between the ages of 2;00-4;00 years.

c. Metathesis

Metathesis occurs when two consonants within a syllable are placed in a different order.
In sum, there is a reordering of the sequence of consonants (C) and vowels (V) within a syllable. For
example, in a CVC sequence the first and last consonants may be reversed, e.g. cup becomes puc; dog
becomes god.

d. Cluster reduction

Cluster reduction occurs when one or more consonants in a cluster is omitted.

We know that some words in English are structured with clusters of more than one consonant in a
sequence, e.g. plan (CCVC), mast (CVCC).

These clusters may be deleted completely, e.g. plan (CCVC) becomes an (VC); mast (CVCC) becomes ma
(CV).

Alternatively the cluster may be partially reduced by only articulating one of the consonants in the
cluster, e.g. plan (CCVC) may become pan (CVC) or lan (CVC); mast (CVCC) may become mas (CVC) or
mat (CVC).

Cluster reduction is often observed in children between 2;00-3;06 years of age.

2. Systemic simplifications

These phonological processes systematically vary a particular type of speech sound and replace it with
another speech sound.

- Substitutions

Again, there are many different types of substitutions that can be made in typically developing speech.

a. fronting

Fronting occurs when any consonant that is made posterior (behind alveolar) (e.g. palatals, velars,
uvulars, pharyngeals) to the alveolar ridge (roof of mouth and upper teeth) is substituted by another
consonant that is made at or in front of the alveolar ridge. Examples of alveolar consonants in English
are, for instance, [t], [d], [s], [z], [n], [l].

For example, goat may be said as doat. Here the back sound ‘g’ (usually made with the back of the
tongue lifting towards the back of the mouth) is substituted with the front sound ‘d’ (made towards the
front of the mouth, with the tongue tip lifting towards the gum ridge just behind the upper incisors).
Other examples include cod being said as tod, and gun being said as dun.

Fronting is often widespread in children from the age of 2;00 years up to as old as 4;06 years.

b. backing
Backing occurs whenever a non-velar or non-glottal consonant (i.e. a bilabial (two lips, eg. Letter b),
labio-dental (lower lips and upper teeth (eg. Letter f), dental, alveolar, post-alveolar or palatal
consonant) is substituted by a velar /k ɡ ŋ/ or glottal /h ʔ/consonant.

For example, bun may be said as gun. Here the front sound ‘b’ (usually made with the two lips coming
together) is substituted with the back sound ‘g’ (made with the back of the tongue lifting towards the
back of the mouth). Other examples include door being said as goor, and tar being said as car.

Backing is frequently observed as a typical process in children from 2;00-3;00 years of age.

Material Source: https://www.sltinfo.com/phonological-processes/