Initial consonant deletion in bilingual Spanish-English-speaking children with speech sound disorders.
Leah Fabiano-Smith, Suzanne Lea Cuzner
PMID 28901779WHAT IT FOUND
Bilingual children with speech sound disorders deleted initial consonants in Spanish (5.71%) and English (1.6%), while monolingual English peers did not.
Errors clustered on complex sounds and multi-syllable words, suggesting language interaction rather than pure disorder.
Key findings
01Bilingual children exhibited significantly higher initial consonant deletion in Spanish compared to monolingual English speakers, but no significant difference between their own English and Spanish productions.
02Initial consonant deletion was triggered by words containing highly complex phonemes (e.g., /l/, /ɹ/ in English; /ɾ/, /l/ in Spanish) in any position, not just the initial sound.
03Evidence of between-language interaction included treating the Spanish /l/ as complex (due to English rules) and deleting remaining initial consonants if they were complex after an initial syllable deletion.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is exploratory with a very small sample size (n=13), limiting generalizability. There was no comparison group of monolingual Spanish-speaking children with speech sound disorders. The findings are speculative and the authors explicitly state that strong caution is needed before applying them to clinical contexts. Socioeconomic status varied among participants, though the authors note poverty effects on phonology are minimal.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the NIH (Extramural) and Non-U.S. Gov't support. No financial conflicts of interest with commercial entities were reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use these percentages (1.6% and 5.71%) as diagnostic cutoffs for bilingual children. The study was exploratory with only 13 participants, and the authors state the clinical interpretations are purely speculative. Monolingual Spanish-speaking children were not included, so it is unclear if the Spanish error rates are due to bilingualism or typical Spanish phonological development in children with disorders.