hector_von_kyiv wrote in linguaphiles 🤔curious

toddler phonetics

As I am watching my own child and other children growing and mastering their mother tongue (Ukrainian), I cannot help noticing that toddlers definitely find it easier to pronounce palatalized coronal consonants [dʲ], [tʲ], [lʲ], [nʲ] [sʲ], [zʲ], etc., especially in word-final position (like [tutʲ] instead of [tut] "here" or making the ending of past tense verbs [lʲa] or even [lʲi] instead of [la]). Overusing palatalized consonants is also a typical feature used by adults to imitate baby talk or speaking in a cuddly manner to children. This can be attributed to imperfect command of children's speech organs, of course, but what I'd like to ask is: are there similar phenomena in languages that do not have palatalized/non-palatalized consonant contrast? What is the typical "speech defect" characteristic of toddlers in various languages?