Effect of dialect on phonological analysis

Area of Science:

• Speech-language pathology
• Developmental linguistics
• Bilingualism research

Background:

• Accurate assessment of speech sound disorders (SSD) in children requires understanding their language background.
• Singapore's multilingual environment necessitates local speech norms for phonological disorder assessment.
• Existing assessment tools often use non-local English standards, potentially misidentifying typical dialectal variations as disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish normative data for English phonological development in bilingual preschoolers in Singapore.
• To compare speech sound accuracy and error patterns using British Standard English (BSE) and Singapore English (SGE) targets.
• To investigate the influence of language dominance on English phonological abilities in this population.

Main Methods:

• 146 preschoolers (aged 3;6-4;5) speaking English and Mandarin participated.
• The Articulation and Phonology subtests of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology - UK were administered.
• Speech data were analyzed against both BSE and SGE standards for accuracy and error patterns.

Main Results:

• Preschoolers demonstrated significantly higher speech sound accuracy when scored against SGE compared to BSE targets.
• Fewer children were identified with phonological error patterns when using SGE targets.
• English-dominant children exhibited higher speech sound accuracy than Mandarin-dominant peers, with differences in error pattern identification.

Conclusions:

• Using SGE targets improves the accuracy of phonological assessment for bilingual preschoolers in Singapore.
• Dialectal variations and language dominance are crucial factors to consider in SSD assessment.
• Assessment tools should incorporate local norms to differentiate between speech sound disorders and normal dialectal variations.