• Vital to use clearly defined pattern descriptions to investigate phonological

development.
• While established as a cut-off criterion to distinguish patterns from InfVar,
cut-off criteria 4 might not be best to use for all patterns.
https://youtu.be/ncw2Qt6bMnE
ICPLA 2020/21 Thursday 24 June 2021 9:00-17:30 BTS
Table 1: Mean and SD of type, token and InfVar Table2: Phonological patterns
Background
InfVar** Age group Cut-off 2;6-2;11 3;0-3;5 3;6-3;11 4;0-4;5 4;6-4;11 5;0-5;5 5;6-5;11
Age Cut Token* Type**
• Normative data on phonological development, in group
N
-off M (SD) M (SD)
*
M (SD)     n= 30 n=27 n=38 n=39 n=31 n=37 n=33
particular phonological patterns, required to assess Pattern   % % % % % % %
children’s speech + identify speech sound disorders 4 12.77 40.67 Systemic simplifications
→ not yet satisfactorily available for Saudi Hejazi- 2;6- 191.97
(3.93) (9.42)
≥4 60 70 61 41 32 27 36
30
Arabic speaking children. 2;11 (71.80)
53.57
Front. of /ʃ, ʒ/
≥6 47 67 58 38 26 16 27
9.83
• Phonological patterns = rule-like occurrence of same 6
(3.71) (9.97)
≥4 27 26 21 18 19 16 15
phonological variation (PhonVar) in a child’s speech Front. of /s, z/
≥6 27 15 16 15 19 14  
(Kirk &Vigeland, 2015). 4 10.85 34.93
(9.38) ≥4 17            
→ often not well or too broadly defined 3;0-
27
163.74
(4.81)
Front./k, ɡ/
3;5 (82.63) ≥6 17            
→ empirically based cut-off criterion for
6 7.67 49.00 ≥4 30 26 26 13      
phonological patterns vs. infrequent variants (InfVar) (4.10) (14.13) Baking /x, ɣ/
≥6 10 26 21 10      
missing.
≥4 57 48 61 31      
4 9.84 30.24 Stop. of
Fricatives ≥6 40 37 34 21      
3;6- 125.00 (4.58) (7.89)
38
Aims 3;11 (75.22)
6.11 42.37 Lateral. /r/
≥4 80 56 42 41 19 19  
6 ≥6 70 52 37 26 16 14  
• Evaluate phonological development based on change in (4.24) (11.04)
≥4 77 48 45 36 10    
PhonVar (Tokens + Types) in Saudi Hejazi-Arabic Glottal
replacement /ʔ/
≥6 50 37 37 15      
speaking children aged 2;6-5;11. 4 5.82 24.69
(3.77) (7.17)
• Identify typical developmental patterns vs InfVar in the 4;0-
39
75.46 Replacement to
≥4 47 30 21        
4;5 (43.07) /h/
same group of children applying two different cut-off 3.62 34.33
≥6 40 22 11        
6
criteria. (2.87) (11.81) De-
≥4 100 93 79 54 35 19  
emphasisation
≥6 100 81 61 38 29 16  
4 3.81 24.90
≥4 13            
60.81 (2.86) (5.09) Denasalization
4;6- ≥6              
31 (33.77)
Method 4;11
 
2.32 31.42 ≥4 77 59 50 23 16    
6 Metathesis
(2.06) (9.15) ≥6 63 44 24 13      
• 240 Saudi Hejazi-Arabic speaking children aged
≥4 90 81 79 46 16 22 27
between 2;6-5;11 (7 x 6 months age groups). 2.73 18.11 Assimilation
4 ≥6 87 56 53 23 10    
• Assessed on newly designed single word naming task   (2.69) (7.31)
  42.38 ≥4 43 37 21 13      
based on international, linguistic guidelines. 5;0-
37 (37.65) Gemination
5;5 ≥6 27 22 13        
• Utterances transcribed using broad IPA + entered into 6 1.70 22.49
(1.87) (10.29) ≥4 80 70 66 44 35 16 24
Phon software (Rose & MacWhinnay, 2014). Devoicing
≥6 70 63 42 28 26 11 15
• Transcripts for each child extracted from Phon to 2.79 18.45
4 ≥4 23 19 16        
identify and label PhonVar not in line with target  
  44.03
(2.48)  (8.09) Voicing
5;5- ≥6 10 11          
• Data analyzed regarding Tokens + Types of 5;11
33 (32.01)
1.39 24.45 ≥4   15 11 15 16 30 33
phonological patterns and InfVar. 6
(1.50) (11.36)
/dˤ/ [ðˤ]
≥6       10 10 22  
• Two cut-off criteria to distinguish patterns from
Key: ≥4 100 89 87 79 74 54 58
InfVar: PhonVar occurred ≥4 or ≥6 within a child’s *Token= is the number of all the phonological variants in all
Vowel
substitution
≥6 97 85 87 54 68 41 33
transcript. children across an age group.
**Type= is the number of patterns in each age group. ≥4 13 22          
***InfVar= is the PhonVar that did not meet the cut-off criteria . Vowel deletion
≥6              
Structural simplifications

≥4 87 52 47 23 13    
WSDel
≥6 67 41 29 10 10    
Findings ≥4 73 59 39 13 10    
SFC WW Del.
Tokens, Types, InfVar (Table 1) ≥6 60 44 29        

• Number of tokens, types and InfVar decreased with age. ≥4 33 26 16        

WF CCred
→ with increasing age, number of PhonVar reduce in Saudi Hejazi-Arabic speaking children ≥6 10 11          

≥4 47 52 37 38 16    
→ overall comparably high number PhonVar in comparison to other languages WFC Del.
≥6 43 19 21 28 10    
• As expected, more PhonVar regarded as InfVar when applying higher cut-off criterion (6). ≥4 37 33 11        
WIC Del.
Developmental Phonological Patterns (Table 2) ≥6 17 11          

• 23 developmental phonological patterns and 3 phonetic error patterns emerged → most in line with Phonetic distortions

≥4 97 89 89 54 65 59 52
previous Arabic-language studies. Distort. of
fricatives
≥6 90 78 82 28 52 49 42
• 3 phonological patterns + 1 phonetic distortion occurred across all age groups and both cut-off
≥4 70 30 39 54 45 27  
criteria with occurrence frequency reducing with increasing age but remaining comparably high until Distort. of /r/
≥6 63 22 26 41 35 24  
5;11. ≥4 43 11          
Distort. of /l/
• All structural simplifications overcome by 4;11, but some systemic simplifications still observed in ≥6 23            

oldest group (5;6-5;11) for both cut-offs or only lower cut-off criterion.
• 2 phonological patterns occurred only for the lower cut-off + in youngest one or two groups
• 1 phonological pattern (/dˤ/ [ðˤ]) seems to increase with age.
Kirk, C., & Vigeland, L. (2015). Content coverage of single-word tests used to assess common phonological error
patterns. Language, speech, and hearing services in schools, 46(1), 14–29.
https://doi.org/10.1044/2014_LSHSS-13-0054
Rose, Y., & MacWhinney, B. (2014). The Phon Bank Project: Data and software-assisted methods for the study of
phonology and phonological development. The Oxford Handbook of Corpus Phonology, 308–401. Retrieved from
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~yrose/Research/Publications/files/2014-Rose_MacWh-CorPho.pdf

Phonological Development of Conclusion

• Findings not in line with other Arabic-language studies might be result of dialectal features or reflect
Monolingual Saudi Hejazi-Arabic- use of different criteria, cut-offs and/or pattern definitions across studies.
speaking Children: aged 2;6-5;11 • Large number of PhonVar not counted as patterns (i.e. InfVar) confirm importance of distinguishing
between patterns and InfVar.
• Differences in findings for two cut-off criteria
Deema Turki, (DFTurki1@Sheffield.ac.uk → highlight dependence of patterns identified from arbitrarily used cut-off.
Twitter: @DeemaSLP) , Annette Fox-Boyer, → question whether patterns only emerging with lower cut-off (4 ) are indeed developmental
Silke Fricke patterns.