Kiswahili phonological inventory for children aged 3-6 in Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

Phonological inventories aid in the assessment and determination of children’s phonological abilities. They should be language specific due to difference in language sound systems. However, Speech–Language Therapists in Kenya use English Phonological inventories to assess Kiswahili sounds, syllable structures and phonological processes of bilingual children. This leaves phonological aspects, such as sounds, peculiar to Kiswahili, which is the second most spoken language, unaccounted for. Therefore, this study set out to investigate Kiswahili consonant sounds, syllable structures and phonological processes with the aim of developing a Kiswahili Phonological inventory for the Kenyan children aged from 3-6. The specific objectives were: to investigate if there is variation in Kiswahili sounds among children aged from 3-6 is caused by frequentness of mother tongue use, with the aim of developing a phonological inventory; to describe the differences in Kiswahili syllable structures present among boys and girls aged from 3-6 so as to develop a phonological inventory; and to describe Kiswahili phonological processes present among children aged from 3-6 with the aim of developing a phonological inventory. The study was guided by theoretical principles from distinctive features theory. A cross-sectional survey design was used to analyse Kiswahili phonological features of 240 out of the targeted 2027 pre-school children, sampled using the Yamane Model and a two-stage sampling technique. Questionnaire and interview schedule supplemented by pictures were used to collect data. Preliminary analysis revealed that firstly /p, b, t, d, h, k, g, f, v, l, r. m, n, s, z. w, y, ʤ ɲ, ʃ/ had been acquired by age 3.6. secondly, CV, CCV, CVV, CVCVV, CVCVCV, CCVCVCV, CVCV, CVCCVCV, VCVCV, CVCVCV syllable structures were consistent among all age groups while phonological process which included addition, deletion and substitution, reduced as age increased. Confirmatory findings revealed that there was no statistically significant variation in mean scores of children’s frequency in usage of mother tongue. This implied that there was no variation in Kiswahili sounds as a result of frequentness of L1 usage. F ( 4 , 217 )  2 . 044 ; p  . 05 . Only 0.3% of the variance in Kiswahili sounds could be explained by how frequently the children spoke L1; secondly, there was no statistically significant variation in mean syllable structures among children of different sexes (T (220) = 1.447; p>.05) two tailed test. However, sex represented a very small size effect as only .09% of the variance in syllable structures; and there was a statistically significant difference in mean phonological processes in six different age groups studied ( F ( 5 , 216 )  8 . 576 ; p  . 05 ).In conclusion, since how frequently a child spoke L1 and sex differences did not cause variation in the inventory, it can be used to assess Kenyan children regardless of L1 and sex. The study contributes to recent discussions in research in SLT on the need for language specific inventories. The findings of this study can be used in designing curriculum for school children aged from 3-6.