Fricative productions of Mandarin-speaking children with cerebral palsy: The case of five-year-olds

Abstract

The age means between cerebral palsy children (CPs) and typically developing children (TDs) were not ideally matched in previous studies targeting the fricative productions of Mandarin-acquiring CPs (Liu et al., 2017, 2016). Therefore, in this study, age-matched CPs (N = 8, Mean = 5;6) and TDs (N = 8, Mean = 5;6) were recruited. Six acoustical parameters (frication duration, rise time, and first to fourth spectral moments) of the five Mandarin Chinese voiceless fricatives (labiodental, alveolar, alveolo-palatal, velar, and retroflex) produced by the participants were compared. The results from Mann-Whitney U tests indicated that, for the labiodental, alveolar, alveolo-palatal, and retroflex fricatives, the values from frication duration, rise time, and first and second spectral moments produced by CPs were generally significantly lower than those produced by TDs. The current results from age-matched groups were different from previous studies and suggested that: 1) CPs tended to have a more posterior cons...