Effects of phoneme type on pronouncing the initial phoneme of a word in normal 5-6 year-old Persian-speaking children

  Introduction: Pronouncing phonemes is one of phoneme awareness skills that influences on reading and writing skills. The development of this skill stats in ages 5-6, but doesn't evolve in these ages. Many variables (the number of phonemes, the position of phonemes in word and the type of phonemes) may influence on this skill. In this study, the ability of pronouncing initial phonemes and the effects of type of phoneme on this skill were evaluated.   Materials and Methods: This analytic-descriptive study was performed on 100 normal and 5-6 year-old Persian-speaking children (50 girls and 50 boys) who were randomly selected. The tool of this study was pronouncing initial phonemes task. This task was included of 6 questions. The responses of children were recorded and registered and analyzed using paired sample t-test. The comparison of data between girls and boys was assessed by independent t-test.   Results: the ability of pronouncing initial phonemes in 5-6 year-old Persian-Speaking children was 0.68. The effects of the manner of articulation was significantly more than those of articulation position and voiced and voiceless (p=0.000) . The ability of children in pronouncing fricative phonemes was significantly more than other phonemes (p=0.000). Mean scores of girls and boys was not significantly different (p=0.57).   Conclusions: The ability of pronouncing initial phonemes develops in early 5-6 ages. The type of phoneme influences on the ability of pronouncing initial phonemes in 5 to 6 year-old children. It seems that the effects of manner of articulation is more than the position of articulation and voiced and voiceless . The ability of pronouncing initial fricative phonemes was significantly more than other phonemes in 5-6 year-old children. In this task, the skills of girls and boys were the same.