| This study provides information on the phonological processes used by simultaneous bilingual two-year-old children developing Spanish-Influenced-English and Caribbean-Spanish. The purpose of the study was to determine how exposure to two languages influences children's phonological development by answering the following questions: (1) What phonological processes are exhibited by children between the ages of 25 and 34 months who are exposed simultaneously to English and Spanish? (2) To what degree do the children with bilingual input exhibit individual differences or similarities in the development of their phonological processes? (3) How do their phonological processes compare with those of children exposed to either English or Spanish as described in the literature?; Two bilingual individuals, during separate English and Spanish sessions, obtained elicited and spontaneous samples from three bilingual children of Puerto-Rican and Dominican backgrounds. Toy stimuli from Spanish and English phonological process assessment instruments, as well as preschool toys and books were used to elicit the samples. English and Spanish data from four time periods (25, 28, 31 and 34 months) were separately analyzed, phonological processes were identified, and percentages-of-occurrence were calculated. The processes were classified according to Syllable Structure, Substitution, and Assimilation process categories and a relative percentage of process use for the categories was obtained.; The results reveal that "universal" tendencies, as well as language-specific and child-specific factors influenced the phonological development of the bilingual children. The bilingual children evidenced developmental phonological patterns that are similar to those observed in typically developing monolingual children learning English and Spanish. Most processes tended to decrease over time, with Consonant Sequence Reduction remaining productive towards the end of the second year. Although the children tended to perform similarly in their two languages, some language-specific differences were noted: Final Devoicing, Gliding of Liquids and Vowelization in English and Lateralization of Liquids in Spanish. However, Velar and Palatal Fronting which occurs infrequently in Spanish, was used rather infrequently in both languages, suggesting possible phonological influence. Individual differences in process use and suppression were observed suggesting that the children experience slightly different rates of development and use different "strategies" in developing the phonologies of their target languages. |
