Nasalance scores for normal Korean-speaking adults and children: Effects of age, vowel context, and stimulus length

Purpose Most acoustic and articulatory studies on /l/ have focused on either duration, formant frequencies, or tongue shape during the constriction interval. Only a limited set of data exists for the transition characteristics of /l/ to and from surrounding vowels. The aim of this study was to examine second formant (F2) transition characteristics of /l/ produced by young children and adults. This was to better understand articulatory behaviors in the production of /l/ and potential clinical applications of these data to typical and delayed /l/ development. Method Participants included 17 children with typically developing speech between the ages of 2 and 5 years, and 10 female adult speakers of Southern American English. Each subject produced single words containing pre- and postvocalic /l/ in two vowel contexts (/i, ɪ/ and /ɔ, ɑ/). F2 transitions, out of and into /l/ constriction intervals from the adjacent vowels, were analyzed for perceptually acceptable /l/ productions. The F2 transition extent, duration, and rate, as well as F2 loci data, were compared across age groups by vowel context for both pre- and postvocalic /l/. Results F2 transitions of adults' /l/ showed a great similarity across and within speakers. Those of young children showed greater variability, but became increasingly similar to those of adults with age. The F2 loci data seemed consistent with greater coarticulation among children than adults. This conclusion, however, must be regarded as preliminary due to the possible influence of different vocal tract size across ages and variability in the data. Conclusions The results suggest that adult patterns can serve as a reliable reference to which children's /l/ productions can be evaluated. The articulatory configurations associated with the /l/ constriction interval and the vocal tract movements into and out of that interval may provide insight into the underlying difficulties related to misarticulated /l/.

Download Full-text

Compensatory Strategies in the Developmental Patterns of English /s/: Gender and Vowel Context Effects

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2016_jslhr-l-15-0381 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 60 (3) ◽

pp. 571-591 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Hye-Young Bang ◽

Meghan Clayards ◽

Heather Goad

Keyword(s):

Context Effects ◽

Speech Development ◽

Developmental Trajectory ◽

Developmental Patterns ◽

Fine Grained ◽

Vowel Context ◽

Adults And Children ◽

And Gender ◽

Acoustic Spectra ◽

Gender Specific

Purpose The developmental trajectory of English /s/ was investigated to determine the extent to which children's speech productions are acoustically fine-grained. Given the hypothesis that young children have adultlike phonetic knowledge of /s/, the following were examined: (a) whether this knowledge manifests itself in acoustic spectra that match the gender-specific patterns of adults, (b) whether vowel context affects the spectra of /s/ in adults and children similarly, and (c) whether children adopt compensatory production strategies to match adult acoustic targets. Method Several acoustic variables were measured from word-initial /s/ (and /t/) and the following vowel in the productions of children aged 2 to 5 years and adult controls using 2 sets of corpora from the Paidologos database. Results Gender-specific patterns in the spectral distribution of /s/ were found. Acoustically, more canonical /s/ was produced before vowels with higher F 1 (i.e., lower vowels) in children, a context where lingual articulation is challenging. Measures of breathiness and vowel intrinsic F 0 provide evidence that children use a compensatory aerodynamic mechanism to achieve their acoustic targets in articulatorily challenging contexts. Conclusion Together, these results provide evidence that children's phonetic knowledge is acoustically detailed and gender specified and that speech production goals are acoustically oriented at early stages of speech development.

Download Full-text

Stimulus Ratio Effects on Speech Discrimination by Children and Adults

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jshr.3403.671 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 34 (3) ◽

pp. 671-678 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Joan E. Sussman

Keyword(s):

Discrimination Task ◽

Response Pattern ◽

Response Patterns ◽

Speech Discrimination ◽

Adult Group ◽

Discrimination Accuracy ◽

Formant Frequency ◽

Response Strategies ◽

Place Of Articulation ◽

Adults And Children

This investigation examined the response strategies and discrimination accuracy of adults and children aged 5–10 as the ratio of same to different trials was varied across three conditions of a “change/no-change” discrimination task. The conditions varied as follows: (a) a ratio of one-third same to two-thirds different trials (33% same), (b) an equal ratio of same to different trials (50% same), and (c) a ratio of two-thirds same to one-third different trials (67% same). Stimuli were synthetic consonant-vowel syllables that changed along a place of articulation dimension by formant frequency transition. Results showed that all subjects changed their response strategies depending on the ratio of same-to-different trials. The most lax response pattern was observed for the 50% same condition, and the most conservative pattern was observed for the 67% same condition. Adult response patterns were most conservative across condition. Differences in discrimination accuracy as measured by P(C) were found, with the largest difference in the 5- to 6-year-old group and the smallest change in the adult group. These findings suggest that children’s response strategies, like those of adults, can be manipulated by changing the ratio of same-to-different trials. Furthermore, interpretation of sensitivity measures must be referenced to task variables such as the ratio of same-to-different trials.

Download Full-text

Relationships Between Subjective Ratings and Objective Measures of Performance in Speechreading Sentences

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jslhr.4004.900 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 40 (4) ◽

pp. 900-911 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Marilyn E. Demorest ◽

Lynne E. Bernstein

Keyword(s):

Hearing Impairment ◽

Performance Evaluations ◽

Objective Measures ◽

Large Individual ◽

Subjective Ratings ◽

Objective Performance ◽

Phonetic Distance ◽

Stimulus Length ◽

Measures Of Performance ◽

Confidence Scale

Ninety-six participants with normal hearing and 63 with severe-to-profound hearing impairment viewed 100 CID Sentences (Davis & Silverman, 1970) and 100 B-E Sentences (Bernstein & Eberhardt, 1986b). Objective measures included words correct, phonemes correct, and visual-phonetic distance between the stimulus and response. Subjective ratings were made on a 7-point confidence scale. Magnitude of validity coefficients ranged from .34 to .76 across materials, measures, and groups. Participants with hearing impairment had higher levels of objective performance, higher subjective ratings, and higher validity coefficients, although there were large individual differences. Regression analyses revealed that subjective ratings are predictable from stimulus length, response length, and objective performance. The ability of speechreaders to make valid performance evaluations was interpreted in terms of contemporary word recognition models.

Download Full-text