ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the problems with ‘w’, ‘l’ and ‘r’ at the beginning of a word when preceded by another consonant. In speech production the term ‘cluster’ refers to two or more consonants that occur in sequence within a syllable. Children commonly use the pattern of context sensitive voicing in combination with approximant cluster reduction. Sometimes there is a different pattern where the approximant is retained and the other consonant is apparently missed out. The development of approximants is gradual. Most children produce approximant clusters by the time they are four years old. The clusters may not be completely accurate until the child is five-and-a-half or six years. In typical development, children sometimes go through a phase of saying the clusters, but with a vowel between them; for example, play ‘puhlay’, brown ‘burown’, green, ‘gureen’ and floor ‘fuhloor’. They then go on to master the accurate pronunciation.
