Learning Accurate Onset Clusters: Perception Lags Behind Production

This study investigates young school-aged children's knowledge (at 4-7 years) of accurate English word-initial onset clusters. By this age, we expect children to be mostly accurate in producing #CC clusters (rather than repairing them with deletion or epenthesis). We ask how well can they recognize and reject cluster repair errors, in both real and nonce word tasks. The results suggest that these learners' cluster judgment skills lag behind their cluster production abilities, and that asymmetries in error types do not overall align between the two domains. Perceptual errors are made most often when comparing clusters with epenthesis repairs, not deletion, and the cluster's sonority profile does not directly influence error rates. After comparing these findings with similar results from adult L2 English speakers as well, we discuss the ways in which issues like recoverability, salience, and contiguity can account for our findings. We also suggest that more work on phonological knowledge and judgments in older children will provide a broader understanding of sound pattern acquisition across development.