TRIGGERING A PRINCIPLE OF PHONEMIC ACQUISITION

This experimental clinical study evaluated different treatment manipul ations of the principle of Laryngeal-Supralaryngeal Cyclicity as a fol low-up to Gierut (1994b). Laryngeal-Supralaryngeal Cyclicity states th at the acquisition of phonemic distinctions will occur as a bivalent c ycle with laryngeal and supralaryngeal distinctions emerging in turn. In this study, children with seemingly static phonemic systems partici pated in a treatment programme that introduced sequentially new distin ctions to the inventory. One child was presented with alternating lary ngeal and supralaryngeal properties consistent with the principle, whe reas the other child was exposed only to consecutive supralaryngeal di stinctions. Results indicated that the latter treatment condition trig gered greater phonemic expansion, as based on the longitudinal course of emergent phonemic distinctions for each child. These findings were comparable to those of the earlier investigation, and have implication s for treatment efficacy and theories of language acquisition.