Perception of Sibilants by Preschool Children With Overt and Covert Sound Contrasts

Purpose This study explores the role of overt and covert contrasts in speech perception by children with speech sound disorder (SSD). Method Three groups of preschool-aged children (typically developing speech and language [TD], SSD with /s/~/ʃ/ contrast [SSD-contrast], and SSD with /s/~/ʃ/ collapse [SSD-collapse]) completed an identification task targeting /s/~/ʃ/ minimal pairs. The stimuli were produced by 3 sets of talkers: children with TD, children with SSD, and the participant himself/herself. We conducted a univariate general linear model to investigate differences in perception of tokens produced by different speakers and differences in perception between the groups of listeners. Results The TD and SSD-contrast groups performed similarly when perceiving tokens produced by themselves or other children. The SSD-collapse group perceived all speakers more poorly than the other 2 groups of children, performing at chance for perception of their own speech. Children who produced a covert contrast did not perceive their own speech more accurately than children who produced no identifiable acoustic contrast. Conclusion Preschool-aged children have not yet developed adultlike phonological representations. Collapsing phoneme production, even with a covert contrast, may indicate poor perception of the collapsed phonemes.

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The Role of Speech Perception in Persistent Speech Sound Disorder

Perspectives on School-Based Issues ◽

10.1044/sbi16.2.18 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 18-24 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Kathryn L. Cabbage

Keyword(s):

Speech Perception ◽

Speech Sound ◽

Speech Sound Disorder

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Tongue contour for /s/ and /?/ in children with speech sound disorder

CoDAS ◽

10.1590/2317-1782/201420130022 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 248-251 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Haydée Fiszbein Wertzner ◽

Danira Tavares Francisco ◽

Luciana de Oliveira Pagan-Neves

Keyword(s):

Speech Sound ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Speech Sound Disorder ◽

Typically Developing Children ◽

Phonological Process ◽

Phonological Processes ◽

Speech Language Pathologist ◽

Group 3 ◽

Group 2 ◽

Group 1

PURPOSE: To describe the tongue shape for /s/ and /∫/ sounds in three different groups of children with and without speech sound disorder. METHODS: The six participants were divided into three groups: Group 1 - two typically developing children, Group 2 - two children with speech sound disorder presenting any other phonological processes but not the ones involving the production of the /∫/ and Group 3 - two children with speech sound disorder presenting any phonological processes associated to the presence of the phonological process of palatal fronting (these two children produced /∫/ as /s/) aged between 5 and 8 years old, all speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. The data were the words /'∫avi/ (key) and /'sapu/ (frog). Tongue contour was individually traced for the five productions of each target word. RESULTS: The analysis of the tongue contour pointed to evidences that both /s/ and /∫/ were produced using distinct tongue contours for G1 and G2. The production of these two groups was more stable than G3. The tongue contour for /s/ and /∫/ from the children in G3 was similar, indicating that their production was undifferentiated. CONCLUSION: The use of the ultrasound applied to the speech analysis was effective to confirm the perceptual analysis of the sound made by the speech-language pathologist.

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Generalization of Sensory Auditory Learning to Top-Down Skills in a Randomized Controlled Trial

Journal of the American Academy of Audiology ◽

10.3766/jaaa.26.1.3 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 26 (01) ◽

pp. 019-029 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Cristina B. Murphy ◽

Andressa K. Peres ◽

Elaine C. Zachi ◽

Dora F. Ventura ◽

Luciana Pagan-Neves ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Controlled Trial ◽

Speech Sound ◽

Auditory Training ◽

Control Group ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Speech Sound Disorder ◽

Top Down ◽

Significant Group ◽

Attention Skills ◽

Sensory Training

Background: Research has shown that auditory training improves auditory sensory skills; however, it is unclear whether this improvement is transferred to top-down skills, such as memory, attention, and language, and whether it depends on group characteristics in regard to memory and attention skills. Purpose: The primary goal of this research was to investigate the generalization of learning from auditory sensory skills to top-down skills such as memory, attention, and language. We also aimed to compare whether this generalization process occurs in the same way among typically developing children and children with speech sound disorder. Research Design: This study was a randomized controlled trial. Study Sample: Typically developing 7- to 12-yr-old children and children with speech sound disorder were separated into four groups: a trained control group (TDT; n = 10, age 9.6 ± 2.0 yr), a nontrained control group (TDNT; n = 11, age 8.2 ± 1.6 yr), a trained study group (SSDT; n = 10, age 7.7 ± 1.2 yr), and a nontrained study group (SSDNT; n = 8, age 8.6 ± 1.2 yr). Intervention: Both trained groups underwent a computerized, nonverbal auditory training that focused on frequency discrimination, ordering, and backward-masking tasks. The training consisted of twelve 45 min sessions, once a week, for a total of 9 hr of training, approximately. Data Collection and Analysis: Near-transfer (Gap-In-Noise [GIN] and Frequency Pattern Test) and far-transfer measures (auditory and visual sustained attention tests, phonological working memory and language tests) were applied before and after training. The results were analyzed using a 2 × 2 × 2 mixed-model analysis of variance with the group and training as the between-group variables and the period as the within-group variable. The significance threshold was p ≤ 0.05. Results: There was a group × period × training interaction for GIN [F (1.35) = 7.18, p = 0.011], indicating a significant threshold reduction only for the TDT group (Tukey multiple comparisons). There was a significant group × period interaction [F (1.35) = 5.52, p = 0.025] and a training × period interaction for visual reaction time [F (1.35) = 4.20, p = 0.048], indicating improvement in the SSDT group and worsening in both nontrained groups. There was also a significant group × training × period interaction [F (1.35) = 4.27, p = 0.046] for the auditory false alarms, with a significant improvement after training only for the SSDT group. Analysis of variance also revealed that all groups exhibited approximately the same level of gains for all measures, except for GIN [F (3,38) = 4.261, p = 0.011] and visual response time [F (3.38) = 4.069, p = 0.014]. Conclusions: After training, the TDT group demonstrated a significant improvement for GIN and the SSDT exhibited the same for sustained attention, indicating learning generalization from an auditory sensory training to a top-down skill. For the other measures, all groups exhibited approximately the same level of gains, indicating the presence of a test-retest effect. Our findings also show that the memory span was not related to the learning generalization process given that the SSDT exhibited a more pronounced gain in attention skills after the sensory training.

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Entropy as a measure of mixedupness of realizations in child speech

Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics ◽

10.1515/psicl-2016-0024 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 52 (4) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Elena Babatsouli ◽

David Ingram ◽

Dimitrios A. Sotiropoulos

Keyword(s):

Linear Dependence ◽

Speech Sound ◽

The Other ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Speech Sound Disorders ◽

The Mean ◽

Child Speech ◽

Mean Length Of Utterance ◽

Children's Speech

AbstractTypical morpho-phonological measures of children’s speech realizations used in the literature depend linearly on their components. Examples are the proportion of consonants correct, the mean length of utterance and the phonological mean length of utterance. Because of their linear dependence on their components, these measures change in proportion to their component changes between speech realizations. However, there are instances in which variable speech realizations need to be differentiated better. Therefore, a measure which is more sensitive to its components than linear measures is needed. Here, entropy is proposed as such a measure. The sensitivity of entropy is compared analytically to that of linear measures, deriving ranges in component values inside which entropy is guaranteed to be more sensitive than the linear measures. The analysis is complemented by computing the entropy in two children’s English speech for different categories of word complexity and comparing its sensitivity to that of linear measures. One of the children is a bilingual typically developing child at age 3;0 and the other child is a monolingual child with speech sound disorders at age 5;11. The analysis and applications demonstrate the usefulness of the measure for evaluating speech realizations and its relative advantages over linear measures.

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The Minimality Condition in phonology

Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s0022226700012135 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

pp. 159-187 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Monik Charette

Keyword(s):

Recent Work ◽

Universal Grammar ◽

The Other ◽

Minimality Condition ◽

Extensive Literature ◽

Phonological Representations ◽

Phonological Processes ◽

Phonological Form ◽

Principles And Parameters

With a few honourable exceptions, phonologists have, until recently, generally assumed the phonological component to be organized along completely different lines from the other components of the grammar. Phonological phenomena were mainly viewed as accidental, language specific, and unprincipled. Whereas some theoretical parallels between syntax and phonology have been drawn (cf. the role of the cycle in both domains and the extensive literature on ordering), there have been few attempts to see if principles of Universal Grammar could be found in phonology as well as in syntax and semantics. Increasingly, however, phonology is now being regarded as a system of principles along with parameters defining the class of human phonological Systems. In such a framework there are no rules of the sort: A → B/C→D. Phonological phenomena result from principles and parameters governing phonological representations and structures present in a particular language. Along these lines, recent work in phonology has suggested that Phonological Form (PF), like the other components of the grammar, is subject to certain fundamental principles. For example, it was proposed by Andersen and Jones in the early 1970s (and pursued by Ewen, Durand and others) that the relations of dependency that determine how syntactic constituents are organized, also determine how segments are grouped together in a given structure. For their part Lowenstamm & Kaye (1982) proposed that a theory of government could account for certain phonological processes such as vowel shortening in closed syllables. Stephen Anderson (1982) and Levin (1985) have proposed that X-bar principles govern the representation of syllables. Specifically, they have proposed that the Rhyme and the syllable as a whole are projections of the syllabic head, the Nucleus.

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Intra-word accuracy and consistency in Finnish-speaking children with speech sound disorder compared to their typically developing peers

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics ◽

10.1080/02699206.2019.1696610 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 34 (8) ◽

pp. 718-733

Author(s):

Anna-Leena Martikainen ◽

Tuula Savinainen-Makkonen ◽

Päivi Laukkanen-Nevala ◽

Sari Kunnari

Keyword(s):

Speech Sound ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Speech Sound Disorder

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Accuracy and variability in early spontaneous word production: The effects of age, frequency and neighbourhood density

First Language ◽

10.1177/0142723719894768 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 40 (2) ◽

pp. 128-150

Author(s):

Samuel David Jones

Keyword(s):

Motor Skills ◽

Speech Sound ◽

Word Production ◽

Bayesian Regression ◽

Future Research ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Speech Sound Disorder ◽

Typically Developing Children ◽

Explanatory Account ◽

Typical Range

High rates of error and variability in early word production may signal speech sound disorder. However, there is little consensus regarding the degree of error and variability that may be expected in the typical range. Relatedly, while variables including child age, word frequency and word phonological neighbourhood density are associated with variance in word production accuracy and variability, such effects remain under-examined in spontaneous speech. This study measured the accuracy and variability of 234,551 spontaneous word productions from five typically developing children in the Providence corpus (0;11–4;0). Using Bayesian regression, accuracy and variability rates were predicted by age, input frequency, phonological neighbourhood density, and interactions between these variables. Between 61% and 72% of word productions were both inaccurate and variable according to strict criteria. However loosening these criteria to accommodate production inconsistencies unlikely to be considered erroneous (e.g. the target /æləɡeɪtəɹ/ pronounced /ælɪɡeɪtəɹ/) reduced this figure to between 10% and 17%, with the majority of word productions then classed as accurate and stable (48%–58%). In addition, accuracy was higher and variability was lower in later months of sampling, and for high frequency words and high density words. The author discusses the implications of these results for future research and the differential diagnosis of speech sound disorder, and presents an explanatory account of findings emphasizing the development of oral-motor skills and increasingly detailed phonological word representations.

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‘Grandpa’ or ‘opera’? Production and perception of unstressed /a/ and /əʁ/ in German

Journal of the International Phonetic Association ◽

10.1017/s0025100320000110 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-26

Author(s):

Tamara Rathcke ◽

Christine Mooshammer

Keyword(s):

Forced Choice ◽

Identification Task ◽

The North ◽

Minimal Pairs ◽

Chance Performance ◽

Prosodic Phrase ◽

Male Speaker ◽

Opera Production ◽

Better Than

In the description of German phonology, two distinct phonetic symbols are currently recommended for the transcription of the vowels [a] (a central low vowel, phonemically /a/) and [ɐ] (phonemically /əʁ/) in word-final, unstressed positions. The present study examines whether differences between these two vowels exist in production and perception of Standard German speakers from the north of Germany. In Experiment 1, six speakers produced a series of minimal pairs that were embedded in meaningful sentences and varied with respect to their accentuation and position within a prosodic phrase. In Experiment 2, the minimal pairs produced by the six speakers of the first experiment were extracted from their respective contexts and tested with 44 native German listeners in a forced-choice identification task. Perceptual results showed a better-than-chance performance for one male speaker of the corpus only. Phonetic analyses also confirmed that only this male speaker produced subtle, but consistent F2/F3 differences between [a] and [ɐ] while the contrast was completely neutralised in the rest of the corpus. We discuss the role of prosody in vowel neutralisation with a specific focus on unstressed vowels and make suggestions for phonetic and phonological accounts of Standard German.

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Non-native Japanese learners’ perception of consonant length in Japanese and Italian

Second language Research ◽

10.1177/0267658317719494 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 34 (2) ◽

pp. 179-200 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kimiko Tsukada ◽

Felicity Cox ◽

John Hajek ◽

Yukari Hirata

Keyword(s):

Foreign Language ◽

Native Speakers ◽

First Language ◽

The Other ◽

Identification Task ◽

Two Stage ◽

Linguistic Experience ◽

Australian English ◽

Japanese Learners

Learners of a foreign language (FL) typically have to learn to process sounds that do not exist in their first language (L1). As this is known to be difficult for adults, in particular, it is important for FL pedagogy to be informed by phonetic research. This study examined the role of FL learners’ previous linguistic experience in the processing of a contrast absent in the L1. The FLs under investigation are Japanese and Italian, which both use contrastive consonant length. Two groups of non-native Japanese (NNJ) learners – L1 Australian English (OZ) and L1 Korean – participated in the consonant length identification task. Neither OZ nor Korean has an underlying consonant length contrast, but Korean has non-contrastive lengthening of tense obstruents with corresponding shorter preceding vowels, which may be beneficial in perceiving consonant length in an FL. We have taken a novel, two-stage approach. First, we compared the perception of Japanese long/geminate and short/singleton consonants by the two groups of NNJ learners. Second, we investigated whether FL Japanese learning by the two groups transfers to the processing of consonant length in an unknown language, Italian. Native speakers of Japanese (NJ) and Italian (NI) were included as controls. They were familiar with contrastive consonant length in their L1, but were naïve to the other language. The NJ and NI groups accurately identified the consonant length category in their L1 but were slightly less accurate in the unknown language. The two NNJ groups were generally accurate (> 80%) in perceiving consonant length not only in Japanese, but also in Italian. However, the direction of NNJ learners’ misperception (i.e. singleton as geminate or geminate as singleton) varied, suggesting that some learners, according to their L1, may categorize length in Japanese and Italian differently rather than uniformly applying the concept of [±long].

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