Másdóttir, T. & McLeod, S. & Crowe, K. (2021, in press). Icelandic children’s acquisition of consonants and consonant clusters. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
Here is the abstract:
Purpose. This study investigated Icelandic-speaking children’s acquisition of singleton consonants and consonant clusters.
Method. Participants were 437 typically-developing children aged 2;6 to 7;11 acquiring Icelandic as their first language. Single-word speech samples of the 47 single consonants and 45 consonant clusters were collected using Málhljóðapróf ÞM [ÞM's Test of Speech Sound Disorders].
Results. Percentage of consonants correct for children aged 2;6-2;11 was 73.12 (SD = 13.33) and increased to 98.55 (SD = 3.24) for children aged 7;0-7;11. Overall, singleton consonants were more likely to be accurate than consonant clusters. The earliest consonants to be acquired were /m, n, p, t, j, h/ in word-initial position and /f, l/ within words. The last consonants to be acquired were /x, r, r̥, s, θ, n̥/, and consonant clusters in word-initial /sv-, stl-, str-, skr-, θr-/, within-word /-ðr-, -tl-/, and word-final /-kl̥, -xt/ contexts. Within-word phonemes were more often accurate than those in word-initial position, with word-final position the least accurate. Accuracy of production was significantly related to increasing age, but not sex.
Conclusion. This is the first comprehensive study of consonants and consonant cluster acquisition by typically developing Icelandic-speaking children. The findings align with trends for other Germanic languages; however, there are notable language-specific differences of clinical importance.
Here is the feedback we received from the reviewer and editor in the acceptance email:
"There is paucity of information regarding the acquisition of consonants in Icelandic. A total of 437 children with typical speech and language development, ages 2;6 to 7;11, participated in the study. The manuscript reports percentage of consonants correct and ages of acquisition of consonants and consonant clusters...The study has great clinical significance as there is a paucity of information on the acquisition of consonants in Iceland. The manuscript now has very clear potential to advance the discipline; the detailed tables and figures will be very useful clinically..."
We began discussing this work in Italy in 2013, then started working on it in Iceland in 2014 - so are really pleased it is finally in press: https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2014/06/thank-you-thora.html
