The impact of dialect on Fijian children’s acquisition of English speech sounds

The age children can correctly produce speech sounds in a language is an important element of assessment by speech-language pathologists (SLPs). However, assessment is complicated for multilingual children since sounds in one language/dialect influence the production of sounds in another. Studies of multilingual speech sound acquisition aim to document cross-linguistic influences to enable valid diagnosis of speech sound disorders. Fiji has three institutional languages (Standard Fijian, Standard Hindi and English). Hundreds of other dialects and languages are spoken by Fijians. The linguistic multi-competence of Fijian children has received limited research attention.