Coda consonant production in French-speaking children

This study examined coda production in French-speaking children, aged 2;6 to 6;10 (n = 141). The primary aim was to provide normative information on coda production with a large group of children. The secondary aim was to investigate factors which influence coda production such as age, manner and place of articulation, word length, word position, and bilingualism. Children took part in a word-naming task in which they produced words containing word-final and -medial codas. Results indicated that French-speaking children, as young as 2;6, produce word-final codas with a high degree of accuracy (i.e. 80%). Age had minimal effects on coda presence (i.e., whether a coda was realized or not) but it did influence coda accuracy (i.e. whether a coda was realized target-like). Older children had better coda accuracy scores than younger children. Manner of articulation influenced coda production: the younger children had the lowest scores for liquid and fricative codas whereas the older children, for fricative codas. A closer examination of coda production according to voicing revealed it was voiced obstruent codas which obtained low accuracy scores across age groups. Word-length influenced coda realization with the youngest age group producing codas more often in one- versus two-syllable words. Children produced codas more often in word-final versus word-medial position with the greatest differences evident in the youngest children. Bilinguals obtained better coda scores than monolinguals at the youngest ages and poorer ones at the oldest ages. The study concludes with a discussion of the clinical implications of the findings.