Word-initial rhotic clusters in typically developing children: European Portuguese

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Rhotic clusters pose significant challenges for Portuguese-speaking children's speech development.
• Understanding the acquisition of these complex sound structures is crucial for early intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the cross-sectional data of word-initial (WI) rhotic tap clusters in typically developing Portuguese children aged 3-5 years.
• To investigate the acquisition of WI /l/ as a singleton and in clusters.
• To analyze the influence of prosodic factors like word stress and length on cluster production.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study design.
• Data collected from typically developing 3-4- and 5-year-old children in Portugal.
• Audio-recorded single-word, story-telling task transcribed by a native speaker.

Main Results:

• An age effect was observed for WI rhotic clusters, aligning with previous European Portuguese research.
• Singleton /l/ preceded /l/-clusters, and tap clusters preceded /l/-clusters, possibly due to lateral velarization.
• Higher accuracy in producing WI rhotic clusters was found in shorter words and stressed syllables.
• Production errors primarily involved structural constraints (e.g., deletion, epenthesis) rather than segmental substitutions.

Conclusions:

• The findings provide valuable insights into the developmental trajectory of rhotic clusters in European Portuguese.
• Prosodic factors significantly impact the accurate production of these complex consonant clusters.
• Speech sound errors in this population are more indicative of phonological rule application than simple sound errors.