Language, on its own, is incredibly complex and difficult to fully understand. Even more complicated is the way in which we learn language, starting from square one and taking years to fully grasp the complex rules that language requires. With this in mind, it makes sense that children make frequent errors as they learn to communicate, especially considering the fact that adults make errors despite their advanced grasp on language. Prevailing research on child speech errors suggests that the errors children make may not register as errors to them, sharply contrasting the immediate reaction of adults to their own mistakes. Luckily, many speech errors do not indicate complications in language learning, despite the often majorly flawed phrases that children use. As speech errors are a naturally occurring, and even expected aspect of language development, their presence is hardly an indication of speech disorders or delays. It is important, given how much of an influence observation and mimicry have on language learning, for adults to be conscious of how they respond to child speech errors. The feedback, both direct and indirect, that children receive from adults related to their speech is a crucial aspect of language learning, due to the value of adult speech in teaching children. Essentially, errors in child speech are entirely normative and should, in fact, occur during language learning. Without these errors, children would not be able to troubleshoot their way through the language process and ultimately gain a deeper understanding of language and the rules that come with it.

Children, especially those who are just developing language, make frequent errors, each caused by varying factors. According to Stemberger (1989), “most child errors are systematic”, and “reflect learning errors”, meaning that they occur naturally as part of the learning process (p 164). It seems that a “child’s language production system is actually designed to make these errors”, including frequent mix-ups between letters like ‘g’ and ‘d’, along with other typical errors, which are expected steps in the process of developing language (Stemberger, 1989, p 164). Aside from systematic errors, children also struggle with phonology, or, speech sounds that make up language (Gillespie, 2017). These specific errors seem to stem from either a “perceptual misidentification of sounds” or an “accurate perception but an inability to reproduce the sound”, which helps to explain why children consistently make these errors despite becoming more proficient in communication (Stemberger, 1989, p 164). Children commonly mispronounce words, and can “[regularize] irregular forms”, for example “saying comed instead of came”, which is an error that persists throughout the process of language development (Stemberger, 1989, p 164). To further examine standard linguistic mistakes, Stemberger (1989) classified several common errors, all of which are made by both adults and children. These include “lexical access errors”, which involve problems with substituting words which do not appear in the context of the sentence, for example, “it’s not easy – it’s not hard to carry” (p 168). This error involved the speaker saying the word “easy” when they meant to say “hard” (Stemberger, 1989). More common mistakes in child and adult speech include “lexical ordering errors” which consist of individuals repeating words within the context of a sentence, and accidentally replacing one word with another (Stemberger, 1989, p 168). Lastly, a common error is a “lexical shift”, which involves a shift in words, which “[result] in a final string that could not occur using the syntactic rules of English”, such as “to how”, rather than the correct “how to” (Stemberger, 1989, p 168). These errors are common among both adults and children, with speech errors being far more frequent and expected in younger speakers.

Errors in child speech are unique because they occur frequently, but do not typically indicate further problems. In fact, as Bowerman (1982) writes, the majority of child speech errors are not considered “errors within the rules of the child’s own system” (p 102). Rather, these errors follow the rules that children set themselves, and represent typical “deviations from adult norms” (Bowerman, 1982, p 102). The creation of new rules is a standard part of language development in young children, and marks their progression into more complex, as well as more accurate, speech. Many errors occur early in the process of language development; however, some, referred to as “late errors”, can occur “in domains of language that the child already appears to have mastered” (Bowerman, 1982, p 102). These errors, despite coming later in development, still do not immediately indicate major problems in terms of linguistic development. Rather, they are “generally quite comprehensible in context and thus do not actually disrupt communication” (Bowerman, 1982, p 102). Since children do not follow the same rules as adults, their speech errors are less jarring, and are even expected. Bowerman (1982) explains common errors such as “goed” and “breaked” as “incorrect forms that conform to the general patterns” of typically used word forms (p 104). These general patterns are part of the unique rules that children create for themselves which make sense to them, as they are not yet able to understand the actual rules of language.

Unsurprisingly, children struggle when it comes to forming questions, which is certainly supported by anecdotal evidence. When asking questions, children often make “errors of auxiliary omission”, for example, asking things like “what he doing?” instead of “what is he doing?” (Rowland, 2006, p 107). This, as suggested previously, stems from the lack of fully developed rules related to syntax that is characteristic of child speech. Aside from these errors, children also tend to make “commission errors”, which involves “subject-auxiliary inversion” (Rowland, 2006, p 107). These inversions appear as, for example, “why he can go?” instead of “why can he go?””, which seem to indicate “that children struggle to master the rules governing auxiliary placement in questions” (Rowland, 2006, p 107). Because children have so many linguistic rules to learn, it is understandable that they struggle to keep track of auxiliaries when asking questions. Other average and expected errors include “double auxiliary errors”, “double tensing errors”, and “raising errors”, all of which include either too many auxiliaries, or lack them entirely, as their names suggest (Rowland, 2006, p 107). As Rowland (2006) writes, these errors are entirely normative and do not suggest long-term deficits, but rather, a short term “failure on the part of the child to master the grammatical rules of governing question formation” (p 107). These errors occur regularly, and are complex, albeit incorrect, efforts to create rules as children attempt to master language.

While the previous errors are entirely normal aspects of development, they can also indicate complications, depending on their scale. Some errors can sometimes indicate the presence of “speech-sound [disorders]”, which are deficits related to language “acquisition that cannot be explained by significant impairment in cognitive, sensory, motor, structural, or affective functioning” (Shriberg, 2003, p 503). This means that in order for children to have these disorders, they must be free of all other deficits that might impact their speech abilities, such as autism. Essentially, these disorders magnify the pre-existing errors in child speech, and stem from far more than the brain’s attempts to understand and apply language (Shriberg, 2003). Another disorder worth mentioning is “speech delay”, which is characterized by the “presence of consonant deletions and substitutions” that “persist in a child’s conversational speech past 4 years of age” (Shriberg, 2003, p 503). Speech disorders are identified by extreme deficits, which build on the typical errors previously mentioned. While speech errors themselves can be concerning, it is the prevalence and persistence of them that can indicate further issues related to speech.

With all of the aforementioned errors in mind, it is important to explore how adults, most importantly, parents, respond to child speech errors. Children learn language by adapting and applying their own rules, based on adult language, so it is important for adults to respond appropriately to their errors in order to best facilitate learning. As Chouinard and Clark (2003) write, while children need “information about how a language is used… and the form of its phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax” in order to develop language, they also need what is called “negative evidence” (p 4). This evidence is “information that identifies children’s errors as errors during acquisition”, or, essentially, adult corrections which redirect child speech errors in a teaching effort (Chouinard and Clark, 2003, p 4). Without receiving redirection in the form of negative evidence, children might struggle to recognize their mistakes, as the adult speech they mimic features far less errors when compared to their own. When parents and other adults correct child speech errors, they are able to help children “identify ungrammatical strings as ungrammatical”, which may be difficult for children to do on their own due to the flawed rules that they follow when communicating (Chouinard and Clark, 2003, p 4). As such, it is important for adults to provide guidance throughout the process of language development, due to the importance of observation in learning.

Child speech errors occur frequently and, despite varying widely, tend to stem from the same brain processes. It seems that the differences between adults and children stem from the rules that children create for themselves that conflict with the rules of adult language. Since children are not linguistically advanced enough to recognize their mistakes, their progress in learning is slow and made more challenging by their developing grasp on speech. Language development is as complex as the errors speakers make when using language, which makes sense given the complex rules attributed to communication. Adults model language for children, so it is understandable that the errors they make are similar at times, albeit varying in frequency.  Child speech errors are, essentially, entirely normal aspects of language development and, rather than indicating problems, are signs of the complex nature of language, and of the skilled methods that children employ when learning to speak.

References

Bowerman, M. (1982). Starting to Talk Worse: Clues to Language Acquisition from Children’s Late Speech Errors. U-shaped Behavioral Growth, 101-145. doi:10.1016/b978-0-12673020-3.50012-4

Chouinard, M. M., & Clark, E. V. (2003). Adult Reformulations of Child Errors as Negative Evidence. Journal of Child Language, 30(3). 1-4. doi:10.1017/S0305000903005701

Gillespie, M. (2017). Lecture Notes.

Rowland, C. F. (2007). Explaining errors in children’s questions. Cognition, 104(1), 106-134.   doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2006.05.011

Shriberg, L. D. (2003). Diagnostic markers for child speech‐sound disorders: introductory comments. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 17(7), 501-505. doi:10.1080/0269920031000138150

Stemberger, J. P. (1989). Speech Errors in Early Childhood Language Production. Journal of  Memory and Language, 164-188. doi:0749-596X(89)90042-9