Fricative and affricate productions of Mandarin-speaking children with cerebral palsy: A view from spectral moment analysis

Abstract

Spectral moment analysis has been adopted as a means of quantifying the differences in the place of articulation among fricatives and affricates produced by typically developing populations and individuals with language disorders in Mandarin Chinese (Jiang, Whitehill, McPherson & Ng, 2015, 2016; Lee, Zhang & Li, 2014). Therefore, this study intends to examine the fricative/affricate productions in Mandarin Chinese between typically developing children (TDs) and cerebral palsy children (CPs) with dysarthria by focusing on the spectral moment analysis (i.e. M1: mean, M2: standard deviation, M3: skewness and M4: kurtosis). Results from nine CPs (Mean:7;0) and ten TDs (Mean: 5;7) indicated that: 1) The average M2 values of all fricatives and affricates were significantly higher among CPs; 2) For individual segments, the M2 values of voiceless alveolo-palatal fricatives, aspirated/unaspirated voiceless dental affricates and the M3 values of voiceless velar fricatives from CPs were significantly higher than those from TDs. Based on the articulatory interpretations of the spectral moment analysis (Li, Edwards & Beckman., 2009; Li, 2012), it was concluded that CPs tended to have a more anterior place of articulation for certain fricatives and affricates. Future cross-linguistic studies might help identify if current observations are language-specific or universal.