Incidence of backing affecting syllable-initial and syllable-final consonants in normal Cantonese-speaking children

This study investigated the incidence of a phonological process, namely backing, in normal Cantonese-speaking children from seven age groups between 2;0 to 5;5 (N = 95). Each subject performed picture naming tasks where 48 target stimuli are included. The structures of these allowed the investigation of the relationship between backing of a segment and various factors that may influence it. These are: the articulation manner of the target consonant; whether or not it is aspirated; the syllable and word structure in which it occurs; and the influence of neighbouring vowels and consonants. Results show that 6.7% to 15.4% subjects in the five age groups from 2;0 to 4;5 used the process of backing affecting syllable initial consonants a higher incidence than that found in previous studies. However, there was no consistent effect of any of the factors listed above on backing. The results suggested that backing should be considered as a developmental process when making treatment decision. A detailed error analysis is provided.

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