An example: I recently started seeing a new 4-year old friend in Spanish who had goals written for plurals. In informal conversation and play, I noticed final /s/ omissions and some gliding (/l/ for /r/), as well. Ironically, in some instances she used the plural form appropriately and in others did not. After speaking with her mother, I noticed that the mother was also not only deleting final /s/ in some instances but was demonstrating other atypical sound substitutions, like /l/ for /r/.
Hold on a second here. "Where is your family from originally?" I asked. "Puerto Rico."
Ah HA!
Okay people. Here's the thing. Phonemic inventories and sound patterns can and do often vary across dialects. After going home and doing a little research and digging into my old linguistics textbooks, I realized that this child probably doesn't need a goal for plurals (but I will give a receptive ID test to check for comprehension). She is just a speaker of Puero Rican Spanish. I don't see many of these on my caseloads, as most of my kiddos speak the Mexican dialect.
Here are some helpful sound distinctions of Puerto Rican Spanish to be aware of:
Although this rang a bell for me from undergrad I definitely needed a refresher! What kinds of dialectical variations of Spanish are you finding on your caseload?
