English-Speaking Children's Knowledge of Stress Patterns

The developmental patterns of stress placement was examined in a cross-sectional study of native English-speaking children aged 5, 6, 7 and 8 years old. A total of thirty five children produced two-syllabic nonwords of varying syllabic structures in both noun and verb contexts. Children's capability of combining two syllables and the proportion of first syllable stress responses were coded as a function of the developmental patterning of word stress. The results showed a significant effect of syllabic structure on children's stress placement. Lexical class was more likely to be employed in older children with larger vocabularies. The effects of age and lexicon size were discussed in relation to development of stress patterns.