ABSTRACT
In natural phonology a distinction is made between phonological processes and rules. In other words, if in phonological acquisition cross-linguistically, children replace fricatives with plosives, this can be considered a natural process. In describing phonological acquisition, natural phonologists would claim that the child has access to the full adult system, but that different sets of natural phonological processes operate at different stages to simplify this target phonology. Many of the processes used to describe disordered speech are the same as those used in language acquisition and natural language description. Among clinical phonologists who espouse a natural processes approach, some researchers claim there is a phonological process they term stridency deletion. The best account of natural phonology is that given by Stamped, although there have been several works of interest in the area in the 1980s and 1990s. Grunwell has been the most important writer on natural phonology in clinical linguistics.
