Phonological Acquisition of First Language in a Child with

Speech Difficulty

Varda Himmatul Aliyah

, Sheila Nashiba

and Rohmani Nur Indah

Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang, Indonesia

Keywords: Phonological acquisition, early speech, speech difficulties

Abstract: Phonological acquisition of the mother tongue is something that will never escape from human life.

Phonological acquisition in children is strongly influenced by the surrounding environment. There are some

children who have difficulty in this phase. Researchers conducted a study with the aim of knowing

phonological acquisition of mother tongue in children aged seven years with speech difficulties or lisp. The

method used in this research is qualitative research method with "case study" approach. The result of the

research that the child has difficulty in reciting some consonant letters i.e d, g, k, q and t. She hasn’t been

able to pronounce well the letters that positioned at the beginning and middle of the word, whereas those

consonants placed at the end of the word, he can pronounce well. For words that contain two consonant

letters, the pronunciation becomes unclear and especially pronounced with a fast tempo, will make it more

difficult for the listener to understand it.

1 INTRODUCTION

A process that will never be separated from human

life is the acquisition of language. This process will

take place continuously through several stages. Each

of these stages will develop towards more complex

language forms. What influences the process of

acquiring a child's language is the situation and

situation of the language in his environment, so that

he can recognize the language.

A child will express his ideas directly without

hindrance using language tools that are owned and

used in his environment, this is commonly referred to

as purposive child language. The child's language

behavior departs from the adoption process by

imitating the language model that has been obtained

from the surrounding environment. There is a

phenomenon that someone's language is not always

the same, there are different elements and types of

languages. It is influenced by who is the speaker,

what language he uses, who he speaks to, the topic

and purpose of the conversation, and when the

conversation takes place.

Today research on language acquisition in

children still requires exploitation given the higher

cases of speech delays or language barriers. Barriers

to language acquisition are very diverse, including

obstacles to phonological acquisition. There are

phenomena experienced by some children who have

difficulties in their acceptance and cause them to

experience speech difficulties, especially in

phonological acquisition. The existence of a

phenomenon like this is one of the discourses of

language disorders in children in Psycholinguistics.

A child can begin to distinguish sounds in the first

half of the year, and then the role will be taken over

by the child's interaction with his environment. If up

to the age of seven years the child cannot speak

phonology correctly, it means that there is an inability

in language or commonly called language disorder. In

this case, the difficulty of talking to children.

The subject of this study was a small daughter

who had the initials ANG and was seven years old,

grade 1 elementary school in Malang. Both of his

parents in his daily life speak Javanese and

Indonesian. ANG was a little troubled when

pronouncing the alphabet letter, so when he spoke he

often did not understand what word he was saying.

The urgency of this study is to map the maternal

phonological acquisition of seven-year-olds who

experience speech difficulties, describing

phonological sequences that are difficult to

pronounce and their location. Previous studies were

conducted with a focus on phonological acquisition

of eight-year-old children (Kepirianto, 2010). So in

general, the mapping in this study is to elaborate on

Aliyah, V., Nashiba, S. and Indah, R.

Phonological Acquisition of First Language in a Child with Speech Difﬁculty.

DOI: 10.5220/0009915900680073

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Recent Innovations (ICRI 2018), pages 68-73

ISBN: 978-989-758-458-9

the findings of phonological acquisition of speech

impaired persons in the context of bilingual speakers,

namely Javanese and Indonesian.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Phonological Acquisition of

Language in Children

Phonology is part of grammar that analyzes the sound

of language (Kridalaksana, 2007). One of the things

that is considered very important in language learning

is understanding sound. A language researcher will

have difficulty researching language without

mastering the sound of language properly. As in

language learning, a language learner will master the

language that will be learned if the said word is

sounded well. Therefore, mastery of sound is a very

important element in language learning and research

(Samsuri, 1987).

A language is mastered by the language

acquisition process. In language acquisition, the input

(input) factor is the most important thing. Chomsky

said that language also has a universal concept so that

mentally, children already know the properties that

are universal (Dardjowidjojo, 1991). Similar to a

child is an entity whose entire body has a button and

a cable attached, one of the buttons will cause a

certain light bulb to light up. So the form of language

is strongly influenced by input from the surrounding

environment.

Phonological acquisition in children is part of the

acquisition of a complete mother tongue. There are

several theories that explain the acquisition of

children's language phonology. One of them is the

universal structure theory developed by Jakobson that

distinguishes two separate periods in the acquisition

and development of phonology, namely the period of

ignoring (waging) and the acquisition of pure

language. Jakobson tried to observe the baby's

sounding at the babling stage and he managed to find

that a normal baby can emit sounds with vocalizations

both vowel and consonant. Jakobson concluded that

there are two stages in phonological acquisition,

namely (1) the stage of pre-labeling and (2) the

acquisition of pure language (Dardjowidjojo, 2005).

The opening phase occurs since a baby is five or

six months old and will stop at around 12-18 months

of age called pure language acquisition. At the stage

of acquiring pure language, the child should be able

to say a few easy sounds like consonants m, p, s, k

and vowels a, i, u, e. There will be more letters he will

master as you get older. Agreeing with this, at around

six months of age a child can issue consonant or vocal

sounds (Indah, 2017).

The acquisition of the sounds is called the cooing

process. A child usually begins to distinguish sounds

between the first half of the year to the next so that it

can be said that speech perception depends on the

interaction of the child and the surrounding

environment. For example, a deaf child cannot find

sound patterns from audio stimuli such as from radio,

tape or television. Effective auditive stimuli are

sounds that children often hear at certain times, such

as sounds when they are given milk, when bathed and

when changing diapers. The visual stimuli are usually

obtained when the baby is rocked by playing a doll in

front of him. The consonants that come out in the

babling stage are bilabial nasal and vowel consonants

a thus will appear the structure C1 - V1 - C1 - V1 -

C1 - V1 .... pa - pa - pa, ma - ma - ma, ba - ba - ba ...

(Indah, 2017). From these words parents will

associate with the mention of papa and mama. From

the information above, if a child cannot say a few

letters with the correct vocalization even after he is

more than five years old then he can be sure to

experience language disorders especially in

phonological acquisition.

2.2 Study of Language Disorders

Speech and language disorders are often referred

to as speech developmental disorders and expressive

language. Language disorder is a type of disorder in

communication and an indication of someone

experiencing disruption in the symbolic process.

Language disorders can occur in children or adults.

The causes of speech disorders are articulation,

noise disorders, fluency problems, aphasia, and delay

in speech due to environmental factors such as

hearing loss or growth and development disorders.

Meanwhile, the cause of hearing loss is conductive

hearing loss caused by a disease related to ear

function, hearing loss due to loss of nerve sensors,

complex hearing loss due to damage to ear function,

hearing loss due to nerve damage or brain tissue. And

disorders due to other conditions, for example:

learning difficulties, brain paralysis, mental

retardation and cleft lip (Indah, 2017).

One example of interference faced by children

when learning to speak specifically in the

pronunciation of certain letters is "slurred".

Slurredness is the inability to pronounce certain

letters. Almost everyone has experienced the lisp

phase. For example, as in a baby, it is normal to

pronounce the letter "r" heard like "l" and so on.

Phonological Acquisition of First Language in a Child with Speech Difﬁculty

However, there is also lisp caused by habit. The

language commonly used in communication also

contributes to causing slurry. For example Sundanese

speakers replace the letters "v" and "f" which become

the letter "p". And the letter "z" which tends to be "j"

or a Balinese speaker who replaces the pronunciation

of the letters "t" and "d" cleanly, and tends to change

to "th" and "dh". In addition Japanese speakers

replace the letter "l" with "r". Or there is also lisp that

is caused by the habits of parents who speak slurred

with children, for example, "cini-cini main cama

mama".

There are various variations of lisp in children.

Some say "r" becomes "l", "k" so "t", "k" so "d" or "s"

with "t" is often reversed. Children who are three or

four years old, their tongue muscles begin to mature.

Basically the development of each child is different.

If there is detecting kecadelan in children, parents

should not allow it so that children do not continue to

be in the lisp phase (Putra, 2009).

When children enter preschool age, children begin

to face social consequences in the form of extended

communication. Children begin to compare their

pronunciation with other children of their age, and

when faced with speakers other than their children,

the exposure to language becomes wider. Language

exposure is very diverse, one of the phonological

exposures that makes children aware of how correct

and acceptable pronunciation is. This phonological

awareness is different in speed between normal

children and children with speech difficulties (Hund-

Reid & Schneider, 2013).

3 METHOD

This study was conducted to map phonological

acquisition of persons with speech difficulties. For

this reason, a scientific method is needed to obtain

data with the purpose and usefulness according to the

purpose of the study (Sugiyono, 2014). This type of

research is qualitative research with a "case study"

approach. Bogdan and Taylor argued that qualitative

methods are research that produces descriptive data

both written and oral from objects observed or

examined (Moleong, 2014). In this study elaborated

on how a person with speech difficulties has a pattern

of phonological acquisition.

The approach used in this study is a case study in

children who experience language disorders. Case

studies aim to investigate phenomena that occur in

real life and are more concerned with questions such

as how and why and at some level also answer what

questions (Bungin, 2005).

Subjects in this study were a daughter with the

initials ANG, aged 7 years, grade 1 elementary school

in Malang. He experienced some difficulties in

pronouncing several letters of the alphabet, so often

the spoken sentence was difficult to understand by

listeners or opponents of his speech.

Data collection in this study was carried out in a

participatory manner in recording data to get

children's natural utterances. The researcher observes

and conducts a conversation by giving a stimulus so

that he can say a few words that are well targeted with

a tempo that is fast or slow, because the difference in

pronunciation tempo is expected to have an effect.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Based on observations, it was found several letters

that have not been properly pronounced. The list of

words that are the target of the pronunciation is

summarized in table 1 based on the position of the

letter at the beginning, middle and end of the word.

Table 1. Word list

Letters Initial Middle Final Combined

d danau,

delima

madura,

badai

Jilid,

Mufid

detak,

dekat

g gusi,

gajah

bagai,

segar

ajeg,

analog

gagak,

anggrek

k kompas

koran

sikap,

sukar

lemak,

lobak

kakak

q qiraah,

quran

aqua,

iqlab

infaq,

akhlaq

t telur,

tangan

satin,

hitam

semut,

rumit

tikus,

tidak,

tegar

In general there are five consonants which the

subject is difficult to pronounce, among others: d, g,

k, q, t. The five letters become less clear in

pronunciation at the beginning of the word, in the

middle of the word or at the end of the word.

Difficulties also arise in combining several

consonants in one word. The pronunciation

difficulties are summarized in table 2.

Table 2. Difficult words

Letters Initial Mid Final Combined

Dhana

Madhura - Dethak

Dhelim

Badhai - Dhekhat

Ghusi Baghai - Ghaghak

Ghajah Seghar - Angkhrek

ICRI 2018 - International Conference Recent Innovation

Letters Initial Mid Final Combined

Tkomp

Sitkap - Tatak

Tkoran Sutar - Titus

Khiraa

Akhua - Thidhak

Khuran Ikhlab - Theghar

t Thelur Sathin -

Thanga

Hitham -

In letter d, the subject cannot pronounce the letter

correctly when it is at the beginning and middle of the

word because there are vowels afterwards. So it

sounds not like d but more on "dh". Whereas in the

letter d at the end of the word he can pronounce well.

The second is the letter g, almost the same as the

letter d, he also has difficulty in pronouncing g at the

beginning and middle of the word. Does not sound

like g but more on "gh". While at the end he can recite

it well and precisely.

The third is the letter k, he cannot pronounce

clearly the existence of k at the beginning and middle

of the word. The pronounced k letter almost melts and

approaches other letter vocalizations such as "t".

Examples are "sukar" which sounds like "sutar".

While the letter k which is at the end of the word, he

can pronounce it well.

The fourth is the letter q, the subject can

pronounce the letter q which is at the end of the word.

However, when pronouncing the letter q which is at

the beginning and middle of the word. It doesn't

sound like q but more to the vocalization "kh". For

example, the word "qiraah" .

The fifth is on the letter t, he cannot pronounce

well if t is in front and center of the word. It's not like

a t, but more on "th". But, he can say with the right

vocalization t which is at the end of the word.

The last discussion is in words that have two

consonants that are considered difficult to pronounce

properly. As in the word "rat" will be "titus",

"brother" to "tatak", "close" to "dhekhat", "beat" to

"dethak", not to "thidhak", "crow" to "ghaghak",

"Tough" becomes "theghar", "orchid" becomes

"angkhrek". If the words are spoken at a faster tempo,

it will sound even more obscure and more difficult for

the listeners to understand.

Speech difficulties that are carried by the subject

appear on the phonological level in saying several

letters, so that the opponent's speech feels confused to

understand the sentence he is saying. This causes the

subject to feel inferior because many of his friends

isolate him.

Phonological acquisition of subjects suspected of

being associated with bilingual exposure obtained.

This is characterized by phoneme replacement into th

and dh. In Javanese the two phonemes appear more

than in Indonesian. Subjects have difficulty doing

phonological distinction between d and dh or between

t and th. Generally bilingual or bilingual children

experience differences in language development

patterns but in the interim period (Indah &

Abdurrahman, 2008). In this case the subject

experiences a difference in phonological patterns

through the golden age where the child should have

set the pronunciation ability. This is what causes the

subject to be called to have a language disorder in the

form of delayed maturation of phonological

acquisition that causes speech difficulties.

Not only in the context of the Javanese-

Indonesian bilingual language, phonological

disturbances as experienced by the subject also occur

in the context of the Turkish language. Phonological

disorders detected during the phonological

acquisition process include the reduplication of

certain syllables, syllable removal, consonant

removal, assimilation, sound deviations, and a

number of other difficulties. Phonological difficulties

in this mother tongue will affect the difficulty in

learning other languages, especially in languages that

have different phonological structures (Topbas,

1997).

Obstacles in phonological acquisition cannot be

considered simple. This is because the findings that

articulation skills greatly affect fluency in mother

tongue which then affects the fluency of other

languages (Jong & Mora, 2017). As for the subjects

who received exposure to the Javanese language

before then exposure to Indonesian, there was a

phonological influence. When the subject was asked

to recite the words in Indonesian, the phonological

aspects of Javanese as a mother tongue helped

dominate it. This shows that when reciting the second

language there is an activity of motor sensory aspects

that is heavier than when the subject recites the

mother tongue (Simmonds, Wise, Dhanjal & Leech,

2011). This is because brain activity involves a wider

area (Abutalebi, Annoni, Zimine, Pegna, Seghier,

Lee-Jahnke, Lazeyras, Cappa & Khateb, 2008). As a

consequence, subjects with speech barriers will

encounter phonological difficulties.

One of the causes of this phenomenon is the lack

of attention of parents in correcting their words early.

He made several pronunciations but was rarely

justified by parents. As a consequence, habituation is

very influential on the acquisition of children's

language, especially in the field of phonology. Early

phonological correction is seen as significant to

prevent the sustainability of speech barriers. Ideally,

Phonological Acquisition of First Language in a Child with Speech Difﬁculty

from the age of four, children can be trained in

phonological awareness in order to distinguish

correct and clear pronunciation so that children try to

imitate accurately (Grawburg & Rvachew, 2007).

What is experienced by the subject in this study

included in the category of special speech disorders

that is in the phonological aspects where the subject

experienced delays in phonological acquisition

compared to his peers. At the age of seven-year-old

speakers, acoustic parameters have been formed

according to phonological exposure to their mother

tongue. Children should be able to do phonological

perceptions including how to distinguish the

pronunciation of all consonants correctly. This

maturity is the basis of children's phonological

awareness ability which results in normal

phonological acquisition abilities (Nittrouer, 1996).

The lower the child's ability to recognize the

phonological differences from the pronunciation of

the word as the exposure gained, the lower the

phonological awareness. This is as found from

observations on the subject. Thus, children who are

accustomed to obtaining accurate phonological

exposure can develop phonological awareness or

maximize their phonological gain. In this case, these

findings corroborate the results of the study which

states that children who have speech difficulties

experience lack of phonological acquisition, more

precisely in phonological awareness (Hesketh,

Adams, Nightingale & Hall, 2000).

5 CONCLUSION

Based on the results of the research that has been

done, it can be concluded that a 7-year-old child who

experienced several obstacles in acquiring

phonology, he had difficulty in pronouncing several

consonants, including: d, g, k, q, and t. If the letters

are at the beginning and the middle of the word, he

has not been able to memorize properly and correctly.

While at the end of the word, he can pronounce with

the right vocalization.

And if two of the letters are in one word, he has

more difficulty in pronunciation, especially if spoken

at a faster tempo. So, it will cause pronunciation

obscurity so the listener also has difficulty

understanding the spoken word. If this phonological

difficulty does not get treatment, it is possible other

than experiencing social problems, the subject will

experience learning problems, especially because of

the difficulty of spelling correctly. In children with

special language disorders such as those with

phonological difficulties who are not trained in

phonological awareness, they will have the right

reading ability (Warrick, Rubin & Rowe-Walsh,

1993).

The risk of phonological difficulties is also

suspected to connect with phonological awareness

and children's literacy abilities. The results show that

children who experience phonological difficulties,

will also have low phonological awareness because

they are not able to distinguish correct and wrong

pronunciation (Bird, Bishop & Freeman, 1995). The

impact ends in spelling difficulties, and often also has

difficulty writing correctly.

One of the causes of disfluency in children is the

environmental factor with the biggest role being in

parents. For children during language acqusition

process, active exposure is badly needed (Aziez,

2016). If lisp is left to school age it can cause children

to feel different from their friends. He will feel

ashamed and feel alien from others, even he will not

want to be told to speak in front of the class for fear

of being laughed at. As a result the child becomes

insecure and will affect the child's self-esteem. Keep

in mind that ages 1-7 years are the golden age for

child growth and development. Parents should pay

more attention to children at this time.

REFERENCES

Abutalebi J, Annoni J.M., Zimine I., Pegna A.J., Seghier

M.L., Lee-Jahnke H., Lazeyras F., Cappa S.F., Khateb

A. 2008. Language control and lexical competition in

bilinguals: an event-related fMRI study. Cereb Cortex

18, 1496–1505.

Aziez, S. 2016. Active language exposure in phonological

acquisition Proceedings IICLLTLC, 235-242

(http://openjournal.unpam.ac.id/index.php/Proceeding

s/article/view/200)

Bird J.I., Bishop D. V. & Freeman N.H. 1995. Phonological

awareness and literacy development in children with

expressive phonological impairments. Journal of

Speech Hearing Research . 38 (2), 446-462.

Bungin, Burhan. 2005. Metodologi Penelitian Kualitatif.

Jakarta: Prenada Media Group.

Dardjowidjojo, Soejono. 1991. Pemerolehan Fonologi dan

Semantik pada Anak Kaitannya dengan Penderita

Afasia dalam PELLBA 4. Yogyakarta: Kanisius.

Dardjowidjojo, Soejono. 2005. Psikolinguistik: Pengantar

Pemahaman Bahasa Manusia. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor

Indonesia.

De Jong N. H. & J C. Mora. 2017. Does Having Good

Articulatory Skills Lead to More Fluent Speech in First

and Second Languages? Studies in Second Language

Acquisition. pp. 1-13.

doi:10.1017/S0272263117000389

Grawburg, Meghann & Rvachew, Susan. 2007.

Phonological Awareness Intervention for Preschoolers

ICRI 2018 - International Conference Recent Innovation

with Speech and Sound Disorders. Canadian Journal of

Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology 31(1), 19-

26.

Hesketh, Anne; Adams, Catherine; Nightingale Catherine

& Hall, Rebecca. 2000. Phonological awareness

therapy and articulatory training approaches for

children with phonological disorders: a comparative

outcome study. International Journal of Language and

Communication Disorder 35 (3), 337–354.

Hund-Reid, C. & Schneider, P. 2013. Effectiveness of

Phonological Awareness Intervention for Kindergarten

Children with Language Impairment. Canadian

Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology

37 (1), 6-25.

Indah, Rohmani Nur & Abdurrahman.2008.

Psikolinguistik: Konsep & Isu Umum. Malang: UIN

Press.

Indah, Rohmani Nur. 2017. Gangguan Berbahasa. Malang:

UIN-Maliki Press. Cetakan ke-3.

Kepirianto, Catur. 2010. Pemerolehan Fonologi Anak Usia

8 Tahun pada Masyarakat Bilingual. Semarang:

UNDIP.

Kridalaksana, Harimurti. 2007. Pembentukan Kata dalam

Bahasa Indonesia. Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama.

Moleong, Lexy J. 2014. Metodologi Penenelitian

Kualitatif. Bandung: PT. Remaja Rosdakarya.

Nittrouer, S. 1996. The relation between speech perception

and phonemic awareness: evidence from low-SES

children and children with chronic OM. Journal of

Speech and Hearing Research 39 (5), 1059-1070.

Putra, Rendi P. Cadel. Retrieved 28/05/2018 from

https://rendipermanaputra.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/

cadel/.

Samsuri. 1987. Analisis Bahasa : Memahami Bahasa

secara Ilmiah. Jakarta: Erlangga.

Simmonds, A. J., Wise, R. J., Dhanjal, N. S., & Leech, R.

2011. A comparison of sensory-motor activity during

speech in first and second languages. Journal of

Neurophysiology, 106 (1), 470–478.

Sugiyono. 2014. Metode Penelitian Pendidikan

Pendekatan Kuantitatif, Kualitatif dan R&D. Bandung:

Alfabeta.

Topbas, Seyhun. 1997. Phonological acquisition of Turkish

children: implications for phonological disorders.

European Journal of Disorders of Communication, 32

(4), 377-396.

Warrick, Nicola; Rubin, Hyla & Rowe-Walsh, Sheila,

1993. Phoneme awareness in language-delayed

children: comparative studies and intervention. Annals

of Dyslexia 43, 153.

https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02928179.

Phonological Acquisition of First Language in a Child with Speech Difﬁculty