Phonological Processes of 2-4 Years Old Farsi Children

Phonological processes are the changes which children make in pronunciation while uttering words. The present study aimed at investigating phonological processes of 2-4 year old Farsi-speaking children. The subjects of this cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical study included 128 24-48 months old Farsi-speaking boys and girls without any auditory, visual, physical, mental, speech, language, emotional, structural and functional articulation disorders. They were selected by simple random selection method from nurseries of different areas of Tehran. The research tool was an experimental and researcher made test of phonological processes which were designed for this study, and composed of 43 one-to-four syllable words including all Farsi phonemes by which the categories of syllable structure, consonant substitution, vowel substitution, complete assimilation, replacement and other processes were gathered and assessed. The data were analyzed by Independent T-test, Man-Whitney, One-way ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis. Findings showed no significant difference at phonological processes between boys and girls (P>0.05). Phonological processes showed a decrease trend by increasing age. Different age groups revealed significant difference in syllable structure (P<0.001), consonant substitution (P<0.001), vowel substitution (P=0.003) and complete assimilation (P=0.003). The findings of the present research reveal that gender has no effect on phonological processes. But by increasing age, these processes decrease which may reflect greater mastery of older children on phonological perception and pronunciation.