ABSTRACT
In this study, 22 children, ages 6:0 to 6:11, who misarticulated word-initial [r] as [w], were compared to 13, age-matched normally articulating children for their ability to identify and discriminate seven synthetic stimuli representing an acoustic continuum between [we] and [re]. Discrimination was tested among 3-step continuum stimulus pairs using the 4IAX paradigm. All of the control children demonstrated a single, sharp phonemic boundary during identification and higher between-phoneme than within-phoneme discrimination ability. Most of the misarticulating children demonstrated abnormal identification functions, with many showing only chance-level responses. Discrimination ability of the misarticulating children was generally poorer than that of the normally articulating children. Furthermore, discrimination ability of children in both groups was largely predictable from their identification performance, assuming categorical perception of these stimuli. Results indicate that a majority of the 6-year-old [r]-misarticulating children have failed to phonemically distinguish /r/ from /w/. These results call into question the use of the liquid gliding process as a psychological processing description of the misarticulation of these children.
Subject(s)
Articulation Disorders/psychology , Phonetics , Speech Perception , Child , Female , Humans , Male , Speech AcousticsABSTRACT
6 language-impaired misarticulating and 6 normal kindergarten children produced and perceived differences in word-initial stop consonant voicing. Individuals' productive and perceptual phonemic boundaries were similar. No statistically reliable differences were noted between the groups' mean productive or perceptual boundaries. Individual exceptions suggest that some misarticulating , language-impaired children may be inordinately challenged by synthetic speech stimuli or may pass through a developmental stage in which perceptual ability outstrips productive ability.
Subject(s)
Articulation Disorders/psychology , Speech Acoustics , Speech Perception , Speech , Child, Preschool , Cues , Humans , PhoneticsABSTRACT
Eight normally developing preschool children manifesting incomplete mastery of /r/ articulation repeated three times at four week intervals sentences containing the allophones [3 r 2] embedded in various consonantal contexts. Two judges evaluated /r/ allophone production as correct or incorrect. Children whose /r/ production improved showed greater success with [3 r] articulation than with [2]. Results indicate that normally developing children may be distinguished from more slowly developing children on the basis of differential success with production of various /r/ allophones.
Subject(s)
Child Language , Language Development , Phonetics , Child, Preschool , Humans , Speech/physiologyABSTRACT
Differential feedback used by speech and language clinicians in schools was investigated and described. Eleven clinicians were tape-recorded during three consecutive treatment sessions with groups of second-or third-grade articulation-defective children. Recordings were analyzed according to feedback category, frequency, and consistency of administration. Results indicated restricted repertoires of applied categorical items and extreme variability in frequency and consistency of utilization.
Subject(s)
Reinforcement, Verbal , Speech Disorders/therapy , Speech Therapy/methods , Biofeedback, Psychology , Child , HumansSubject(s)
Gender Identity , Identification, Psychological , Speech Perception/physiology , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
Auditory assembly performance of kindergarten-age children was studied using either present progressive or past tense sentences. Thirty children enrolled in kindergarten repeated six past tense sentences and six present tense sentences. Sentence length was systematically increased from six to 11 words. All responses were tape recorded and analyzed according to total errors, error types, word position, word type, and semantic information. Results indicated significantly more omission errors than substitution, nouns and verbs were best retained, and error rates increased linearly through the nine-word sentences with a greater number of errors occurring in the 10- and 11-word sentences. In addition, there was no significant difference in ability to assemble past or present progressive tense sentences. Finally, in contrast to preschool children, kindergarten-age children retained key items (noun, verb, and object) during assembly performance of all 12 sentences.
Subject(s)
Auditory Perception , Child Language , Language Development , Child , Child, Preschool , Humans , Memory, Short-TermABSTRACT
Ten children who misarticulated /r/ participated in a task designed to survey inconsistent misarticulatory behavior. Children repeated 51 sentences during each of three trials. All sentences contained a single occurrence of an allophone of /r/ in systematically permuted, lexically constrained (LC) or nonlexically constrained (NLC) CrV contexts or nonlexically constrained (NLC) contexts. Results suggested that reliable judgment procedures were employed and that a high degree of internal consistency was present for the sentence repetition task. All children demonstrated inconsistent misarticulation of the target phonemes. Target allophones, in order of least to more often correctly produced, were (NCL) [r], (LC) [r], and (NLC). Correct production of [r] within NLC contexts occurred more frequently when preceded by /k/ and when followed by the vowels /i/, /ae/, and /u/. The target allophone [r] in LC clusters was produced correctly more often within /k/ and /t/ contexts than in /p/ contexts. Vocalic was produced correctly more often within and contexts than when in others in which /k/, /n/, /t/, and /p/ were permuted. Data suggest that certain anticipatory and carry-over coarticulatory variables result in positive influences during inconsistent misarticulatory behavior.
Subject(s)
Speech Disorders/diagnosis , Child , Child, Preschool , Humans , PhoneticsABSTRACT
A sentence assembly performance task related to sentence duration and length was studied using sentences four to eight words in length. Durational constraints were imposed through utilization of 30% speech compression of words in addition to insertion of silent intervals (200 or 1000 msec) between each word. Tape recordings of sentences were played to 60 preschool children. All responses were tape recorded and analyzed according to total ereors, error type and location of the error within the sentence. Results suggest that successful assembly performance is significantly related to the number of words in a sentence and not to the duration of the sentence.
