It has long been assumed that children's early words are represented at a phonemic level. However, evidence is showing that phonological representations undergo growth and change, from the more holistic syllabic units to the more segmental, discrete phonemic units. Given that Chinese is a syllabic language with very simple syllabic structure, the question is whether the phonological representations of Chinese-speaking children undergo similar change as that found in other languages. In this study, Chinese-speaking children were given lists of three bisyllabic nonwords for recall. Analyses of children's memory errors showed that errors of recombining consonants and vowels available in the stimulus strings were proportionally more than errors of misordering entire syllables, suggesting that the syllable is not an intact processing unit in memory. The suggestion was reinforced by the findings that the tone structures of the stimulus strings were mostly preserved on recall even when the segmental content was changed. There was also an indication that phonological representations became even more segmental and less syllabic in early grades.
