Response bias in children's phonological systems

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which auditory and visual stimuli influence certain sound productions of children. Grade level and position of the target sound were the two variables studied. Children were shown a meaningful picture and were asked to repeat the name of the picture as spoken by the experimenter who misarticulated one phoneme in the word. It was found that children in the lower grades tend to repeat the word as it should be articulated, whereas children in higher grade levels tend to repeat the word as it was spoken. Position of the phoneme in the word was not found to be a relevant variable. Support is given to the use of nonmeaningful instruction material as stimuli when teaching new sounds to young children.