Presentation - ECV2024-552

Children’s speech development: Portuguese (European)

Maria João FREITAS, Lisbon University, Portugal, (joaofreitas@letras.ulisboa.pt)
Marisa LOUSADA, Aveiro University, Portugal, (marisalousada@ua.pt)
Ana Margarida RAMALHO, Health School of Alcoitão, Lisbon University, Portugal,
(amargaridamcramalho@gmail.com)

European Portuguese is spoken in Portugal, one of the eight countries where Portuguese is the official language. Several dialects have been described for European Portuguese. Standard European Portuguese has 19 consonants (with a larger inventory of phones), 14 vowels, and four glides. Word stress is regularly associated with a word-final trochaic foot; intonation is used for sentence meaning assignment. Portuguese is written from left to right using the Modern Latin Alphabet. Several studies on Portuguese children’s phonological acquisition demonstrate universal tendencies in the acquisition of segments, syllables, and prosody. Portuguese researchers have studied children with typical and atypical language profiles. Common speech assessments include Teste Fonético-Fonológico – Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar, Teste de Avaliação Verbal and Crosslinguistic Child Phonology – Português Europeu. Interventions include auditory discrimination, minimal pairs, phonological awareness, traditional articulation therapy, and parent-based work.

Key words:
European Portuguese, multilingual, communication, speech, language, children’s development, interdisciplinary, international communities, assessment, intervention

Book chapter:
Freitas, M. J., Lousada, M. & Ramalho, A. M. (2025). Portuguese (European) speech development. In S. McLeod (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of speech development in languages of the world. Oxford University Press.

Language overview presentation:

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

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