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A case study of a Canadian French-speaking child with protracted phonological development : nonlinear and constraint-based phonological perspectives

University of British Columbia

For speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working with preschool and school-aged children, a large proportion of their caseload consists of clients with protracted phonological development (PPD). Research has shown that speech and language therapy outcomes for children with PPD can be maximized when the therapy goals and intervention plan for a given client are guided by a strong linguistic theory and relevant acquisition norms. With more than 7 million native French speakers living in Canada, it is necessary that Canadian SLPs have access to studies that show the application of different linguistic theories to data from French-speaking children, as well as research pertaining to French acquisition norms. This descriptive case study applied the principles of nonlinear and constraint-based phonological theories to assessment data from a French-Canadian child with PPD, before and after phonological intervention. The analyses provided an overview of the child’s phonology at both time points, highlighting areas of strength and need, and were the basis for the discussion of the mismatch patterns observed. The relative progress of certain therapy targets compared to others was also evaluated with respect to this analytic framework, and a set of future intervention goals was proposed based on data from Time 2. To situate the data within the literature on Canadian French, the results were compared with what is known about phonological intervention and the emerging normative data about the acquisition of Canadian French. While his phonological profile reflected many of the trends described in the literature (e.g. his order of singleton consonant and consonant cluster acquisition, rates of deletions in codas), there were some notable discrepancies (e.g. Percent Consonants Correct, rates of mismatch types). At the initial assessment, his PCC was more than 2SD below reported means for other Canadian French-speaking children with and with no PPD. He also showed more segmental than syllable structure mismatches, which is opposite to the overall patterns reported in the Canadian French literature. The data speak to the value of case studies in acquisition research and the utility of comprehensive analyses in the description of complex patterns of phonological development.

Text

2016-10-05

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/59387

Audiology and Speech Sciences

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/