Phonological variations in typically-developing Italian-speaking children aged 3;0-4;11

Area of Science:

• Speech-Language Pathology
• Developmental Linguistics
• Child Phonology

Background:

• Normative phonological data are essential for assessing children's speech sound skills.
• Such data are currently insufficient for Italian-speaking children.
• This gap hinders accurate evaluation of phonological acquisition in this population.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the phonological development of typically developing Italian-speaking children.
• To analyze speech sound variations across different age bands.
• To investigate the role of infrequent variants (InfrVar) in phonological development.

Main Methods:

• Assessed 183 Italian-speaking children aged 3;0-4;11 using a picture naming task.
• Analyzed phonological variations (Tokens, Types, pattern occurrence, InfrVar).
• Applied two cut-off criteria to differentiate InfrVar from phonological patterns.

Main Results:

• Phonological measures, including InfrVar, decreased with increasing age.
• Identified 22 phonological patterns consistent with existing literature.
• The choice of cut-off criteria significantly impacted pattern identification, suggesting some patterns may be InfrVar.

Conclusions:

• Phonological development in Italian children shows a gradual refinement with age.
• The distinction between phonological patterns and InfrVar requires careful consideration of cut-off criteria.
• Further research with younger children is needed to understand low-frequency patterns and the significance of InfrVar in early development.