Presentation - ECV2024-569

Children’s speech development: Urdu

Saira AMBREEN, The University of Hong Kong, HKSAR, China (saira.ambreen90@gmail.com)
Carol Kit Sum TO, The University of Hong Kong, HKSAR, China (tokitsum@hku.hk)

Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and is spoken by people in a number of countries including India, Afghanistan, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and the USA. There are several dialects of Urdu, namely Bhojpuri, Bihari, Deccani, Dhakaiya, Haryanvi, and Hyderabadi. Urdu is characterized by 38 consonants, 15 consonant clusters, 23 vowels, and 15 diphthongs, and uses a Perso-Arabic script. Research on children’s acquisition of Urdu is emerging and mainly focused on consonant acquisition. The acquisition of Urdu consonants continues beyond age seven. A few researchers have examined speech sound disorders in children with hearing loss and found that they produced more errors on velars and fricatives as compared to other consonants. SLPs generally use self-developed or self-translated assessments. Several tests including the Test of Articulation and Phonology of Urdu (TAAPU; Noveen et al., 2017a), Urdu Articulation Screening Test (UAST; Muzaffar et al., 2019), and the Urdu wordlist (Shabbir & Zahra., 2016) have been developed. Intervention approaches commonly used in practice include traditional articulation therapy and the minimal pair approach.

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

Book chapter:
Ambreen, S. & To, C. K. S. (2025). Urdu 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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