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Article published In:
Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 9:1/2 (2020) ► pp.132–161

Language development in children from different SES backgrounds

Babbling onset and consonant characteristics

| University of Antwerp
| University of Antwerp
| University of Antwerp

The aim of the study is to analyze prelexical speech development in young children with a different socio-economic status (SES): children from low SES backgrounds (lowSES) are compared with mid-to-high SES (mhSES) children. Timing of the onset of babbling and the consonantal development in consonant-vowel (cv) syllables are investigated. Result show that lowSES children reach the babbling onset milestone significantly later than mhSES children. In addition, they use different consonant types in their cv-syllables: they use more glides, but fewer stops, nasals, fricatives, and liquids. These early differences between children of different backgrounds seem to be in line with the literature on SES differences later on in life.

Keywords: babbling onset, consonant development, socio-economic status
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The role of SES in language development
  • 3.SES and babbling
  • 4.The present study
  • 5.Method
    • 5.1Participants
    • 5.2Data collection
      • Children from mhSES backgrounds
      • Children from lowSES backgrounds
    • 5.3Data transcription
    • 5.4Data analyses and statistical analyses
      • Onset of babbling
      • Incidence of consonantal types
  • 6.Results
    • 6.1Babbling onset
    • 6.2Incidence of consonant types
      • Descriptive results
      • Statistical analyses
  • 7.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 16 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dujal.19032.van
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