Background: Speech-language pathologists require knowledge of typical speech development to support diagnosis, evaluation, treatment, and clinical judgment. However, there is limited research evidence concerning the phonological acquisition of Kurdish-speaking children.

Aim: To document and investigate the phonological development in a typically developing Kurdish-speaking boy between the ages of 21 and 31 months to present a longitudinal case report.

Method: The child’s spontaneous speech was sampled over 10 months in 3-week intervals at home while he was playing with his toys and picture books. Speech samples were analysed to document phonetic inventories, phonological patterns, syllabic shapes, consonant clusters, and speech intelligibility.

Results:  All Kurdish vowels and consonants, except trilled /r/ were acquired in the phonetic inventory by 31 months. He also acquired consonant clusters in the initial and final syllable position and produced all Kurdish syllable structures. The child’s speech intelligibility increased over time. As anticipated, his phonological processes decreased over time except for weak syllable deletion and final devoicing.

Conclusions: This study provides longitudinal information that can be used to demonstrate individual differences between children in the evaluation and treatment of Kurdish-speaking children. Children vary in age of phonological acquisition onset, rate of development, and types of developmental errors.

Implications for children and families: As children grow, the number of sounds that they can produce, and the percentage of their speech intelligibility increases.

Implications for practitioners: You should be able to understand the phonetic inventory of a Kurdish-speaking child is completed at a young age (except trilled /r/), complexity of syllable structures increases, and the number of error patterns decreases over 10 months. There are individual differences between children.

Key words: phonological development, Kurdish-speaking child, longitudinal study, Kurdish, communication

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

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 4: Quality Education