Developmental pattern
Weak Syllable Deletion
An unstressed syllable disappears from a longer word.
- Resolves
- By 4;0
- Sounds affected
- Any unstressed syllable in a multisyllabic word
- Word pairs
- 15
What it sounds like
- "banana" becomes "nana"
- "elephant" becomes "efant"
- "computer" becomes "puter"
- "telephone" becomes "tephone"
Also called: Unstressed syllable deletion
What is going on
English words have strong beats and weak beats. "BaNAna" has its stress in the middle, which leaves two quiet syllables around it - and quiet syllables are the ones children drop. The syllable that disappears is almost always an unstressed one, and most often it comes right before the stressed beat.
Because the deleted syllable is unstressed, this pattern often goes unnoticed by family - "nana" sounds like a cute word rather than an error. It becomes important at school age, when longer academic vocabulary arrives and the pattern starts to affect spelling and reading as well as speech.
Try this at home
Clap or tap one beat for every syllable while you say the word slowly, then have the child copy the beats before they copy the word. Building from the end also helps: "na," then "nana," then "banana" - each turn adds one syllable to the front, so the part they can already say stays put.
When to refer
Still dropping syllables after age 4, or dropping stressed syllables at any age.