Developmental Trends in Vocal Fundamental Frequency of Young Children

Abstract

Developmental trends in vocal fundamental frequency of young children. Robb, M. P., & Saxman, J. H. September 1985, pp. 421-427. In the Discussion section at the bottom of page 426, two lines were omitted in the paragraph. The entire paragraph should read: Taking into account that such a discontinuity in F 0 [might exist between non-intentional and intentional utterances, an interesting trend for the developmental] course of F 0 variability is suggested. The child's transition from meaningless, phonologically undifferentiated babbling to productions of meaningful speech (11-16 months) is a period in which large interutterance variability might be expected. Even within the transition period of larger variability, the function of decreasing interutterance standard deviation across age is apparent and is depicted quite clearly in Figure 1. We cannot, however, rule out the influence of segment duration on the reported F 0 variability values. The decrease in F 0 standard deviation as a function of age was not independent of segment duration decreases, and as such, the influence of one upon the other is not clearly discernible during this early age period.