The development of initial consonant clusters in German-speaking 2-year olds
2017
Purpose: The aim was to explore cluster acquisition in typically developing Germanspeaking
2-year olds.
Method: Data from four cross-sectional studies (n=145, aged 2;00-2;11) and one eightmonth
longitudinal study were analysed (n=6, aged 2;01-2;04). Two different percentages of
consonant clusters correct were calculated to allow a more detailed analysis.
Results: Findings showed that the majority of children produced clusters although they
could not be considered to be fully acquired. Correct production significantly correlated with age.
Only /gl/ and /kl/ were shown to be phonetically and phonemically acquired (75% criterion) in the
older age-group. 3-element clusters were acquired at the same time as 2-element clusters and /∫/-
clusters were acquired to the same or larger extent as non-/∫/ clusters when fronting/backing of /∫/
was accepted. Younger children produced more reductions than simplifications but this effect was less
strong for the /∫/-clusters. Developmental realisation patterns varied depending on cluster type. Interand
intra-individual developmental patterns could be observed which changed depending on the time
of testing.
Conclusion: Findings on cluster acquisition in 2-year old German-speaking children
revealed language specific differences but also similarities in comparison to results from other
languages. All but two children produced clusters. However, individual variation between children
was high.
Keywords:
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
0
References
0
Citations
NaN
KQI