Phonological and lexical characteristics of late talking children : a longitudinal perspective

Includes bibliographical references.During the first three years of life, there is a developmental link between phonology and the lexicon. This study examines the relationship between phonological and lexical characteristics of late-talking children. Four late-talking children were followed longitudinally in this study at three measurement points: the initial evaluation (24 to 27 months), 30 months, and 36 months. Measures of phonetic inventory size and composition, vocabulary size, mean length of utterance in words, and number of different words were obtained at each measurement. The results indicated that asynchronous patterns were present between the children's phonology and expressive lexicon. One child still showed asynchrony between his lexicon and phonology at 36 months. The implications for the use of chronological age referencing and intralinguistic referencing are discussed.B.S. (Bachelor of Science