Development of velar consonants among normal two-year-olds.
This study examined the frequency of occurrence of velar deviations in spontaneous single-word utterances over a 6-month period for 40 children who ranged in age from 1:11 (years:months) to 3:1 at the first observation. The productions of a subset of 14 children whose percentage of occurrence of velar deviations was greater than the mean of the total group were examined further to describe the types of velar deviations and the effects of word position and phonetic context. Results indicated that velars presented difficulty for less than half of the children. In the subgroup the type of deviation and the percentage of correct velars appeared to vary with the position in the word, the vowel environment, and the velar's function as a singleton or as one segment of a cluster.
D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013060:Speech