Alveolar and velar stop releases during speech development.

Abstract

It has been shown that children learning English tend to use tongue-to-palate contact patterns while producing velar and alveolar stop consonants that are not as well differentiated as for adults [Cheng et al., J. Speech, Language, Hearing Res. 50, 375–392 (2007)]. The electropalatographic experiments suggest that young children have not developed the fine motor control necessary for mature articulation of lingual consonants. It is possible that this may persist to become a speech disorder as they mature. We offer a complementary perspective that focuses on the mismatch between the acoustic and aerodynamic scaling from children’s vocal tracts to adult vocal tracts. In learning the motor control necessary to make a good distinction between alveolar and velar stops may be hindered by scaling mismatches. In this paper we will highlight acoustic measures of four children recorded every 6 months from the ages of 12–48 months playing with a care giver. We will consider both the formant frequencies at release and the shape of the burst spectrum to both help characterize the development acoustically and to infer what is causing the acoustics in the articulation. [Work supported by Grant No. NIDCD-RO1-001247.]