This study examines the production and reduction patterns of initial /s/ clusters by Hebrew-speaking children with phonological disorders. Data were collected from 30 children with phonological disorders between the ages of 3;5-5;2. The data were elicited by means of a picture-naming task combined with a sentence completion task. Target words…

Two hypotheses related to the emergence of multiword speech were explored: (1) that multiword speech follows developments in children's ability to map communicative intents to single-word expressions; and (2) that the acquisition of these mapping principles paves the way for the emergence of syntax. The developments consist of an increase in the…

A study on children's speech is prefaced by an extensive theoretical discussion. An attempt to construct a taxonomy that captured psychologically real, discrete types of communicative acts in mother-child interactions was based on the insight that verbal utterances are social acts that are meaningful in particular social situations. The taxonomy…