A normative study of the acquisition of consonant sounds in Portuguese

Phonological acquisition is a topic that has fascinated researchers trying to solve the puzzle of how children learn to talk. A review of the literature provides a large body of information about the acquisition of English phonology. The study of Portuguese phonology is a rapidly growing discipline with several studies dating from 1992 to the present. Most of these studies have addressed the need to build a more theoretical basis to support clinical work with individuals with disorders.; The purpose of this study was to collect normative data on the acquisition of consonant sounds in Portuguese as spoken in Brazil. The data were used to answer four questions: (1) What percentage of children at each age level produced each consonant correctly? (2) What is the age of "customary production" for each sound? (3) What is the age of "acquisition" for each sound? (4) What is the age of "mastery" for each sound?; An existing articulation test of Portuguese was used to collect samples from 192 normally developing children between the ages of 2:0 and 6:11. The children represented eight age groups with 12 boys and 12 girls in each group. The children's responses were tape recorded and transcribed by two listeners for later analysis.; The consonants were considered separately in all positions in which they occurred. The percentages of accuracy of each consonant sound were analyzed and indicated a rapid development between 2:0 and 2:6 with continued but slower development in older groups. No significant differences were found between the performances of girls and boys. The ages of acquisition were compared to English and Arabic. Customary production tended to come later in Portuguese but mastery occurred earlier than in the other two languages. The voiceless consonants were produced more accurately than their voiced cognates. In the younger groups the word initial consonants were less accurate than the same consonants within words. Unlike the findings of other languages, the liquids were learned before the fricatives. Other patterns of acquisition found were similar to those reported in other languages.