A child who says "efalant" instead of "elephant" is exhibiting which phenomenon?

The child saying "efalant" instead of "elephant" is demonstrating the phenomenon of metathesis. Metathesis occurs when the sounds or syllables in a word are rearranged, resulting in a different phonetic structure compared to the standard pronunciation. In this example, the initial sounds of "e" and "l" in "elephant" have been transposed, leading to the mispronunciation.

Understanding metathesis is important in speech-language pathology because it reflects normal developmental patterns in young children as they learn to articulate complex words. It shows variations in phonological processing and can be a common error in early speech development.