Recent studies have suggested that both adults and children are sensitive t
o information about phonological pattern frequency; however, the influence
of phonological pattern frequency on speech production has not been studied
extensively. The current study examined the effect of phonological pattern
frequency on the fluency and flexibility of speech production. Normal- and
fast-rate nonsense-word repetitions of three groups of participants (presc
hool school-aged children, and adults) were analyzed. Subjective ratings of
the wordlikeness of nonsense words, percentage phonemes correctly repeated
, mean duration, and durational variability were measured. In the first exp
eriment, ratings of the wordlikeness of nonsense words were found to correl
ate with the pattern frequency of sequences embedded in them. In the second
analysis, it was found that children, but not adults, repeated infrequent
sequences of phonemes less accurately than frequent sequences. in the third
experiment, infrequent sequences were produced with longer durations than
frequent ones, with children demonstrating a larger difference between freq
uent and infrequent sequences than adults. Phonological pattern frequency a
lso influenced variability in infrequent sequences of sounds were more vari
able than frequent ones. Thus, there appears to be an influence of phonolog
ical pattern frequency on speech, and, for some measures, a larger effect s
ize is noted for children.