Presentation - ECV2024-509

Children’s speech development: Danish

Marit Carolin CLAUSEN, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark (marit@sdu.dk)

Danish is spoken in Denmark, the Danish minority in northern Germany, in Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Several dialects are spoken in Denmark. However, today most people in Denmark speak a regional standard which is the National Standard with local traits. Danish is characterized by a rich vowel system and an unclear sound structure due to consonant weakening and schwa-assimilation which leads to many vocalic sounds. Danish includes 19 consonants, 41 distinctive vowels, 45 initial and 70 final consonant clusters, 49 diphthongs and does not use tone. Studies of children’s acquisition of Danish indicate that children finish their acquisition of speech sounds around 4;0. Studies have also been carried out on Danish children with speech sound disorders of unknown origin as well as in children with cleft lip and palate. Common speech assessments for Danish include LogoFoVa and Kaj-testen, and often-used interventions are a psycholinguistic oriented phonology therapy (POPT) and the minimal pair approach.

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

Book chapter:
Clausen, M. C. (2025). Danish 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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