Covert acoustic markers of alveolar-velar stop contrasts in the speech of two-year-old children with and without repaired cleft palate

Abstract

The development of backed alveolar stops in children with repaired cleft palate (CP) may be due to reduced maxillary arch dimensions (Zajac et al., 2012; Eshghi et al, 2013). Shriberg et al. (2003) have also suggested that otitis media (OM) may be a marker for backed articulation in children without CP. The present study sought to explore acoustic markers of alveolar and velar stops in two-year old children with and without repaired CP. All children were from American-English speaking families, had competent VP function as determined by nasal ram pressure (NRP) monitoring, and had hearing within normal limits. Speech samples consisted of words with initial alveolar and velar stops. Audio recordings of six children with repaired CP, (2 males, 4 females), seven children with OM (6 males, 1 female), and 13 typically developing (TD) children (7 males, 6 females) were analyzed acoustically. Results indicated that mean first spectral moment was smallest (6.03 kHz) for the alveolar sounds produced by children with CP, followed by children with OM (6.22 kHz), and then by TD children (6.61 kHz) (p = 0.15). These preliminary trends suggest that both maxillary anomalies and/or fluctuating hearing loss may contribute to the development of palatalized stops. [Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number 1R01DE022566-01A1.]