Coda Acquisition in Typically Developing Brazilian Children

CODA ADQUISITION IN TYPICALLY DEVELOPING
BRAZILIAN CHILDREN
Daniela Evaristo dos Santos Galea, PhD
H
Haydée Fiszbein Wertzner, Associate Professor
UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO – BRAZIL
METHODS
INTRODUCTION
• Subjects
23 boys
24 girls
18 boys
23 girls
In relation to age of acquisition, some studies observed that
the coda /S/ is acquired in typically developing children before three
years of age (WERTZNER, 1994 and MEZZOMO, 2004). For the coda /R/, a study
with children from São Paulo observed that this segment was
acquired at 4:6 years old in final syllable and 6:0 years old in
syllables within the word (WERTZNER,1994). A study with children who
lived in the South of Brazil showed that it is acquired at 3:10 in all
syllables of the word (MEZZOMO, 2004).
(Wertzner, 2000)
GII
GI
For the coda, the following segments are considered: /R/ and
/S/. Some words in Brazilian Portuguese show the /L/ as a coda, but
in São Paulo, this segment is vocalized to an /u/, not being
considered as a coda. As also, some syllables end with an /n/ or an
/m/ but most part of the researches do not consider them as a coda
as it nasalizes the previous vowel.
repetition of 39 disyllabic or trysillabic words
imitation
Brazilian Portuguese consonants can appear as syllable onset
in the beginning of a word and within the word, as a coda in a syllable
within a word and in the end of a word and, as the second consonant
of a syllable (CÂMARA JR, 1975; SILVA, 1999; MATZENAUER, 2004).
picture
naming
naming of 34 disyllabic or trisyllabic objects
continuous
speech
only nouns were analyzed from a 15-minute
recording of a play between evaluator and children.
(Wertzner, 2000).
All tests were recorded with a camera and a tape recorder.
All children were enrolled in a public day care center in the city of São Paulo, Brazil
The /s/ and /r/ codas were analyzed in initial or final syllable of the word.
No hearing or language complaint
In case less than 10 children of one group produced the target; this coda was
not analyzed in that target syllable.
All were Monolingual Brazilian-Portuguese-Speaking children
• Procedure
H
•Statistical Analysis
Parents signed the permission for the research and answered a questionnaire
about their children.
AIM
For all the comparisons between accuracy of the groups, the t test was used.
Children needed to present adequate answer in the vocabulary assessment,
according to their age (Teste de Linguagem Infantil – ABFW, Befi-Lopes, 2000).
This research aimed to compare the accuracy of codas in two
groups of typically developing children.
For the comparison of type of errors, the test of proportion was conducted.
After that, three Phonology Tests were applied (picture naming, imitation and
continuous speech tests).
The significant level adopted was 0.05.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
• GI x GII
• Most frequent errors
• Errors
CS I
NAM I
Test
Test
H
Continuous
speech
Coda
R
S
R
Imitation
S
Naming
R
S
Syllable GI (mean)
initial
final
initial
initial
final
initial
final
initial
final
inicial
14.29
0.86
27.50
1.22
0.00
10.00
42.50
0.00
0.00
22.73
GII
(mean)
22.81
7.50
48.91
14.89
8.89
39.13
70.21
11.11
10.42
44.87
T test (p)
0.523
0.120
0.184
0.002 *
0.044 *
<0.001 *
0.009 *
0.044 *
0.096
0.074
Syllable
test of
proportion
initial
final
initial
final
initial
final
0,018 *
0.203
0,0294 *
0.5736
0,003 *
0.736
Continuous Speech
GII
R
GI
GII
Imitation
GII
Continuous Speech
GI
IMIT I
GI
GII
S
GII
GI
GI
0,0%
20,0%
40,0%
C
60,0%
OF
OS
80,0%
100,0%
0,0%
Imitation
Naming
20,0%
S
40,0%
C
OF
OS
FL
60,0%
LL
I
I+FL
80,0%
D
omission of the
syllable
omission of the
phoneme
substitution for s +
vowel
omission of the
phoneme
inicial
0.798
inicial
0.0002*
final
0.0370*
inicial
0.066
100,0%
S
Legend: C: correct production, OF: omission of the phoneme, OS: omission of the syllable, FL: frontal lisp, LL: lateral lisp, I: interdentalization, D: distortion, S: substitution
Codas are still produced with low accuracy in children between 2:1 and 3:0 years old. One of the
most frequently observed errors was the omission, also showed in previous researches (MEZZOMO,
Table 1 – Comparison of S and R codas in two groups of children
type of error
omission of the
phoneme
GII
Naming
IMIT F
GII
IMIT F
NAM
F
GI
NAM I
CS F
GII
GII
IMIT I
When comparing the mean percentage of accuracy, there were
no significant statistical differences between both groups in the
continuous speech test. On the other hand, in all syllables analyzed
in the imitation test, older children presented better accuracy of
codas. The only difference between groups in the naming test was
for the /R/ in the initial syllable (p=0.044) (Table 1).
The /S/ coda showed difference between the two groups only
in the imitation test in initial and final syllable. Data are with
accordance to the comparison of the error of omission of this coda
between the groups, showing that younger children present more
percentage of this error. This can be related to the fact that older
children present better motor performance than younger children,
being able to imitate with more precision the adult standard.
Table 2 – Comparison of the errors
Figure 2 – Errors of the S archiphoneme
Figure 1 – Errors of the R archiphoneme
2003; 2004).
Another relevant data found was that in final syllable the most frequent error was the epenthesis of
a vowel after the /S/ coda corroborating the study of MEZZOMO (2004). This fact indicated that children
tend to maintain the CV syllable during this stage of acquisition.
Regarding the coda /R/, in all syllables and tests, most part of the errors are of omission,
corroborating with the data of previous researches that show these errors as the most frequent
within the syllable (MEZZOMO, 2004). However, in the end of the word, that research showed that the /R/
was more substituted by /y/ or by the lateral liquid. In the present research the epenthesis of a
vowel was also an error observed, as the children tried to maintain the CV syllable.
REFERENCES
BEFI-LOPES, D. M. Vocabulário. In: ANDRADE, C. R. F.; BEFI-LOPES, D. M.; FERNANDES, F. D. M.; WERZNER, H. F. ABFW - teste de linguagem infantil nas áreas de fonologia, vocabulário, fluência e pragmática. Carapicuíba: Pró-Fono, 2000, cap. 2.
CÂMARA JÚNIOR, J. M. Estrutura da Língua Portuguesa. 34ª ed. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 2001.
MATZENAUER, C. L. B. Bases para o Entendimento da Aquisição Fonológica. In: LAMPRECHT, R.R. Aquisição Fonológica do Português: perfil de desenvolvimento e subisídios para a terapia. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2004, chapter 2.
MEZZOMO, C. L. A Análise Acústica como Subsídio para a Descrição da Aquisição do Constituinte Coda. Letras de Hoje. Porto Alegre. v. 38, n. 2, p. 75-82, 2003.
______. Sobre a Aquisição da Coda. In: LAMPRECHT, R. R. Aquisição Fonológica do Português: perfil de desenvolvimento e subisídios para a terapia. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2004, cap 8.
SILVA, T. C. Fonética e Fonologia do português – roteiro de estudos e guia de exercícios. 2ª ed. São Paulo: Contexto, 1999.
WERTZNER, H. F. Aquisição da Articulação: um estudo em crianças de três a sete anos. Estudos de Psicologia. v.11, n. 1,2, p.11-21, 1994.
______. Fonologia. In: ANDRADE, C. R. F.; BEFI-LOPES, D. M.; FERNANDES, F. D. M.; WERZNER, H. F. ABFW; teste de linguagem infantil nas áreas de fonologia, vocabulário, fluência e pragmática. Carapicuíba: Pró-Fono, 2000, cap 1.
The errors that appeared more then ten times were
compared between age ranges (Table 2). Differences were
found for the archiphoneme R just in initial syllables,
indicating that this phoneme is acquired first in initial
syllable than in final syllable.
For the S archiphoneme, there were differences only in the
imitation test, indicating that older children are more
accurate than younger ones.
Grant: CNPq
Contatos: [email protected]; [email protected]