ABSTRACT
Phonological disability in children is characterized by loss of contrasts in the phonological system, thus potentially restricting the ability of that system to signal meaning differences in language. The term ‘communicative adequacy’ can be interpreted differently depending on whether one takes a narrow or a broad view of the term ‘communicative’. Work is currently in progress to develop an assessment protocol for assessing the functional adequacy of children’s contrastively restricted phonological systems in terms of the concept and measure of functional loss (FLOSS). FLOSS values for phonological processes most commonly found to be operating in the speech of phonologically normal and disordered children have been calculated on the basis of a lexical sample reflecting children’s ‘common’ vocabulary. By observing the nature of phonological processes and process combinations operative in children’s speech, it is possible to make certain predictions about the potential homophony in a child’s lexical system resulting from the absence of contrasts in the phonological system.
