Reduplication as a strategy of phonological development

Five hypotheses are explored about the role of Reduplication in phonological development. Specifically, it was postulated that children who frequently reduplicate would (a) use more multisyllables, (b) be better at maintaining adult syllable structure, and (c) show limited ability at final consonant production. For all children, it was further proposed that reduplication would (d) be used predominantly as a means to maintain a nonreduplicated adult syllable, and (e) characterize the speech of the youngest subjects. Data were analysed for 24 children between 1; 1 and 2; 8, and compared when possible to results reported in Schwartz, Leonard, Wilcox & Folger (1980). The results confirmed the above hypotheses, revealing reduplication to be a general pattern during the earliest stages of phonological development that is used most frequently by children preferring to follow a multisyllabic rather than monosyllabic course of development.