Perception of CV syllables, words, and sentences by listeners with speech/language disorders

Abstract

Developmental differences in the performance of normal 6‐ and 10‐year‐old children and young adults, for a group of tasks that includes detection, identification, and labeling of synthesized CV syllables [ba, da, ga] have recently been reported [L. L. Elliott et al., “Developmental differences in identifying and discriminating CV syllables,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 70, 669 (1981); L. L. Elliott et al., “Detection and identification thresholds for consonant‐vowel syllables,” Percept. Psychophys. (in press)]. We now describe performance on these tasks, the NU‐CHIPS Test, and the SPIN Test for a group of children and adults with speech and/or language disorders. Results showed that: (1) all subjects performed more poorly than normals on one or more of the tasks; (2) they performed poorly on different tasks; (3) poor performance on the experimental tasks could be related to subjects' individual speech/language problems; and (4) aberrant performance on these tasks was not predictable from performance on standard clinical tests.