A longitudinal study of the babbling and phonological development of a child with hypoglossia

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Abstract
This is a longitudinal study of the phonological development of a child born with severe hypoglossia. The purpose of the study was to determine this cognitively normal child's phonological repertoire and. strategies, from the emergence of babbling to the use of a phonologically complex system. The study involved data collection during two time periods: (1) a study of babbling and early vocabulary development from 5 months through 18 months and (2) a phonological analysis and intelligibility testing at 5 years 10 months. Monthly audio recordings were collected from 5 through 14 months, which were analysed phonetically. His parents kept a diary of his first 50 words. A standardized articulation test was performed at 5 years and 10 months, and words including dental and alveolar phonemes were elicited. Single-word and sentence intelligibility were assessed. At the babbling stage the phonetic repertoire was reduced, but babbling followed the normal sequence. Vocabulary development progressed at a normal rate and word avoidances were not observed. At 5 years 10 months, voicing and manner were preserved while palatal and velar contacts were substituted for dental and alveolar ones. Intelligibility of single words which included alveolar or dental targets was significantly lower than that for a set of phonetically balanced words. Intelligibility of sentences was significantly better than that for phonetically balanced single words.

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