Children's sounds are results from the production of vowels and consonants:
Production of Vowels
Three areas contribute to the projection of vowels (1) the height of the body of the tongue (2) the position of the tongue, both front and back (3) lip-rounding degree |
Production of Consonants
Four areas contribute to the projection of consonants (1) Place of Articulation (2) Manner of Articulation (3) Voiced or Voiceless (4) Aspirated or Not aspirated |
However, a child's production of language sounds may often lack behind their comprehension. This is like knowing what to write for an extended response in your head during an examination, but not being so sure how to write it out. So, children are able to hear the difference between sounds, but are incapable of actually making and voicing them.
Such difficulties can include:
Due to these difficulties, children may encounter some hardships and irritation while developing their language.
This is even proven by the 'Fis Phenomenon' which was introduced in 1960. It explains why children get annoyed when people imitate their pronunciation. Therefore, it is important to listen to your child carefully when they are speaking, and helping them by correcting what is wrong and complimenting what is right.
Such difficulties can include:
- Consonant Clusters
: the difficulty in sequencing two or more consonants in a lexeme
(e.g. tree, blue, grape, etc.)
This can cause the child to possibly leave a consonant out.
For example, leaving out the 'l' in 'blue', resulting it to sound like 'bue'. - Diphthongs (in Australian English)
: the movement of the mouth from one position to the other while producing vowel sounds
Due to these difficulties, children may encounter some hardships and irritation while developing their language.
This is even proven by the 'Fis Phenomenon' which was introduced in 1960. It explains why children get annoyed when people imitate their pronunciation. Therefore, it is important to listen to your child carefully when they are speaking, and helping them by correcting what is wrong and complimenting what is right.