Children's Speech Research Articles

Формування мовленнєвої компетентності молодшого школяра: лексика війни

The article highlights the peculiarities of the formation of primary school children’s speech competence during the war. The war vocabulary is analyzed. It is noted that speech competence is an important component of the formation of a primary school children language identity. The attention is focused on the fact that children use military and war lexis actively, and this is not surprising, as Ukrainian children are children of war. It is proved that the formation of children's speech competence in the conditions of war is possible with careful work on the oral and written speech of schoolchildren. The peculiarities of the use of war words by primary schoolchildren in their oral and written speech was analyzed as well as war vocabulary in drawings and letters to the Ukrainian soldiers. The questionnaire revealed what words such children use in everyday communication, whether they know the meaning of these words, including new ones, and identified the most commonly used items and phrases. Most of them refer to Ukrainian soldiers, weapons, and equipment. The letters express appreciation and admiration for Ukrainian heroes and produce prayers for their safe lives. The children’s written speech is more controlled and restrained than their oral speech, but at the same time keeps childish emotions and spontaneity. In their oral speech, they use phrases familiar to all Ukrainians that have arisen since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, they know many songs, mostly “adult”, written during the years of 2022-23. These lexis and phraseology are a part of the vocabulary of a modern primary schoolchild and define the peculiarities of the speech of the children of war.

Особливості мови няні в повсякденному спілкуванні між матір'ю та дитиною: педагогічний аспект

The article substantiates the importance of nannies’ language for the children’s development, namely the danger of long-term use of the phonetic, morphological and syntactic properties of babysitters' language in the process of communicating with the child. The theoretical positions that are the basis for the analysis of the collected research material are related to the theories of symbolic interactionism, constructivism, and the ecological theory of human development. In the research it is assumed that the child's development is dynamic and occurs as a result of structuring and restructuring the experience gained during interaction. It is confirmed that development takes place in a certain environment, but it is worth remembering that the child is not a passive imitator of the stimuli, but as a result of mutual interaction with the environment. The child begins to form one’s own image of the surrounding world. It has been found that language serves as one of the elements that allow a person to build an idea of the surrounding reality in mind. The article emphasizes the importance of speech and, more broadly, communicative competences for a child's development. The results of a study conducted among mothers of two- to three-year-old children are presented. Considering this stage of the child's development is considered special because of the phase of the child's speech development, as well as the formation of personality. The study presents a diagnostic survey and includes free communication between mother and child. The paper outlines the characteristic properties of the language of nannies. Based on the results of the study, the consequences for the development of long-term use of nanny’s language by adults are shown. The article emphasizes the importance and influence of the communication skills and abilities of babysitters and parents on the child's development and further education, as well as the importance of pedagogical support for effective communication in early childhood.

Validation of clinical simulation scenarios for the teaching of soft skills in child-centered care

Consultations with children and their families are complex and require soft skills. However, there is a gap in the medical curriculum concerning these skills, especially as encounter training is often adult-centered. We developed, validated, and applied simulation scenarios that prioritize active participation of children to train soft skills in child-centered care for undergraduate medical students. This is a methodological study to develop three scenarios and a checklist of what is expected. The content was validated by 18 experts. A pre-test was carried out for adjustments. Then, the simulations were applied and evaluated by 18 medical undergraduate students. They included the participation of 6 pediatric simulated patients aged 9–12 years trained by a drama teacher. According to the results, the scenarios and checklist proved to be valid instruments in content terms (ICV-I > 0.8). The scripts were followed by the simulated pediatric patients, but they had difficulty mimicking a hypoactive state. Some were anxious, but everyone enjoyed participating in the feedback. The simulated parents had difficulty participating and giving space to the child's speech. Participants assessed that the simulations performed as they were proposed and, after experimenting them, felt more prepared. The simulations provided an opportunity for students to practice soft skills by interacting with children in a safe environment. Using children as simulated patients is feasible but presents some challenges. Our study has expanded the ways in which children's health content can be taught. We are investigating whether this training leads to better patient outcomes in real clinical settings.

Evaluation of Psychomotor Development in Children Treated with Therapeutic Hypothermia

Introduction. Perinatal asphyxia is a common neonatal problem. It remains a leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality and plays a major role in motor and intellectual developmental deficits in children. Complications of cerebral hypoxia in asphyxiated newborns can be treated with therapeutic hypothermia. The treatment involves moderate cooling of the newborn to minimize the consequences of hypoxia. Aim. To evaluate psychomotor development and detect impairments and deficits in motor functions, perception, speech, manual functions and social contacts in children treated with therapeutic hypothermia. Material and Methods. The study was carried out on a group of 27 children treated with therapeutic hypothermia. The data involved an analysis of medical records and the results of psychomotor development evaluation using the Munich Functional Development Diagnostics scale. Results. We found no significant delay in the developmental age of the children for walking. The mean developmental age for this area was 30.56 months (SD=8.42 months), for fine motor skills, speaking, independence and social skills were similar. The mean developmental age for understanding speech was 28.76 months (SD=7.92 months). The mean developmental age for cognitive skills was 27.73 months (Me=28 months). The speech development was slightly delayed for their age (x̅=3.2 months, SD=1.09 months). Conclusions. Children aged up to 1 year showed normal psychomotor development. Small deficits in cognitive processes and social skills were identified in children in the second and third years of life. The greatest developmental delays were identified in children in the fourth, fifth and sixth years of life. (JNNN 2024;13(1):9–16)

A Follow-Up Study of Children Diagnosed with Delayed Speech and Language

Objective: The aim of our study was to examine the current health status of children with normal peripheral hearing who were referred to the audiology clinic with complaints of speech and language delay in early childhood.
 Methods: The data of a retrospective file review in which the information of 105 children with normal hearing ages 12-60 months referred to the Audiology Clinic with complaints of speech and language delay were used in the study. After the initial diagnosis of delayed speech and language (approximately two years), their medical condition was assessed through semi-structured telephone interviews. The obtained data are presented with descriptive statistics.
 Results: Out of 105 children, 54 (51.4%) were diagnosed with other additional diagnoses including; autism spectrum disorder:21 (20%), general developmental delay: 13 (12.3%), attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder: 9 (8.5%), epilepsy: 4 (3.8%).7 (6.6%) of children followed from endocrine, neurology, genetics, cardiology, nephrology and ophthalmology departments. 51 children (48.57%) have achieved the average level of speech and language development with interventions such as speech and language therapy and/or social support in the following period, and they do not currently have any medical follow-up. 
 Conclusion: The results indicated that cases where children who apply with the complaint of speech and language delay may have additional diagnoses in the future, or they can achieve the average level of speech and language development with specialist interventions. Long-term follow-up of this delay is important in terms of providing effective communication skills and the probability of being a diagnostic marker.

"Tremendous burdens often unveil enormous gifts": The experiences of South African caregivers implementing speech and language teletherapy for children with cerebral palsy during COVID-19.

In accordance with South Africa's restrictions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, some speech-language pathologists (SLPs) attempted to engage in novice teletherapy regimes to ensure continuity of care for children with cerebral palsy (CP). This study aimed to explore the experiences of caregivers of children with CP implementing SLP teletherapy during COVID-19 in South Africa. The goal was to shed light on how these families can be better supported and how teletherapy practices can be adjusted for this population. This study employed a qualitative phenomenological research design using in-person and virtual semi-structured interviews with 18 purposively sampled participants with children with CP who received speech and language teletherapy during COVID-19. The data was evaluated using an inductive thematic analysis approach whereby themes elicited from the caregivers' narratives were analyzed. Interviews (n = 18) unveiled the significant understanding caregivers gained by becoming integral and active stakeholders in the provision of teletherapy. Caregivers were able to meaningfully communicate and bond with their children with CP. However, caregivers also assumed the burden that teletherapy placed on them, as they had to renegotiate their role during the pandemic in order to provide routine teletherapy. Findings indicated the need for person-centered SLP teletherapy interventions that utilize contextually and culturally responsive techniques and resources.

KESANTUNAN BERBAHASA ORANGTUA DAN ANAK DALAM LINGKUNGAN KELUARGA DESA ORHILI SUSUA

This research is motivated by language politeness between parents and children in the family environment of Orahili Susua village. The aim of this research is to describe the form of language politeness between parents and children in the family environment in Orahili Susua village. This type of research uses case study research. Case study research is an in-depth exploration of a limited system based on extensive data collection. Based on the research findings and discussion, the result was that politeness in the language of parents and children in Orahili Susua village found 42 utterances, consisting of several maxims: (1) maxim of wisdom 15 utterances (2) maxim of generosity 10 utterances (3) maxim of respect 4 utterances (4) maxim of simplicity 6 utterances (5) maxim of consensus 5 utterances (6) maxim of sympathy 2 utterances. The conclusions from this research show that the speech of parents and children in the Orahili Susua village family environment complies with the principles of language politeness. There are also those who violate the principles of politeness in 10 utterances, consisting of: (1) maxim of wisdom 2 utterances, (2) maxim of respect 4 utterances, (3) maxim of consensus 4 utterances. For this reason, it is hoped that future researchers will further develop this research to provide benefits to readers.

Postponement of the Newborn Hearing Screening during the COVID-19 Pandemic; Parental Experiences and Worries.

Early identification of hearing loss through newborn hearing screening followed by an early start of intervention has proven to be effective in promoting speech and language development in children with hearing loss. During the COVID-19 pandemic, newborn hearing screening was postponed for a group of newborns in the Netherlands. Therefore, meeting the guidelines for early identification was at risk. In this study, we examine parental attitudes, beliefs, and experiences concerning the hearing screening during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results indicated that parents (n = 1053) were very positive about newborn hearing screening and their experiences with the screening, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents' beliefs on the information provision around newborn hearing screening were more inconsistent. The results showed that parents with a postponed hearing screening felt less informed about the hearing screening than parents without a postponed screening. Furthermore, child and family characteristics affected how parents experienced newborn hearing screening. Parents with a premature child were more worried about the hearing abilities of their child before the screening took place. The results also indicate that deafness in the family might lead to parental worries around newborn hearing screening.

Языковая игра в ментальных пространствах произведений детской литературы

The aim of the presented study is to define the specifics of applying constructive principles and techniques of language game in modeling mental spaces in children's literature works. The research novelty lies in identifying the potential of language game in modeling denotative spaces of literary texts for children, particularly in creating occasional onyms and toponyms, modeling children's speech, including through the imitation of unintentional word formation in children's language. Language game is viewed not only as a means of modeling mental spaces but also as a tool to immerse a child into the system of language, introduce them to the laws of artistic texts, engage in linguistic creative activities, provoke children to engage in independent language creation, and linguistic experiments. The obtained results have shown that using language game techniques in creating mental spaces in children's literature serves both as a means of expressing the author's intention and as a method of creatively exploring children's language consciousness and mentality.

Investigation of the effectiveness of articulation therapy through tele-practice on children with cleft palate in Khuzestan Province during COVID-19 pandemic

IntroductionA cleft palate is a common type of facial malformation. Compensatory articulation errors are one of the important causes of unclear speech in children with cleft palate. Tele-practice (TP) helps to connect therapists and clients for assessment and therapy. Our goal is to investigate the effectiveness of articulation therapy through tele-practice on cleft palate children in Khuzestan Province during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials & methodsBefore starting the treatment, a 20-min speech sample was recorded individually from all the children. Speech intelligibility and the percentage of correct consonants were assessed for each speech sample. The control group received treatment sessions in person at the cleft palate center, and the other group received treatment via tele-practice using the ZOOM platform. Treatment sessions were provided in the form of 45–60-min group sessions, twice a week, for 5 weeks (10 sessions in total). After 10 treatment sessions, the speech sample was recorded again. The level of parental satisfaction was measured using a Likert 5-level survey. ResultsThe mean score of intelligibility of the two groups decreased (−1.4400 and 0.7200). The two groups' mean percentage of correct consonants increased. (26.09 and 17.90). In both groups, the mean score of parents’ satisfaction with the treatment was high (3.44 and 3.84). The mean of difference before and after the speech intelligibility and the percentage of correct consonants variables in both groups was statistically significant (P = 0.001 and P = 0.002, respectively). In both groups, the satisfaction variable was not associated with a statistically significant difference (P = 0.067). ConclusionThe effectiveness of in-person therapy over a certain period of time is higher than tele-practice. Nevertheless, the results demonstrated an increase in the intelligibility of speech and the percentage of correct consonants in both groups, thus proving the effectiveness of articulation therapy in correcting compensatory articulation errors in children with cleft palate through in-person and tele-practice.

Language Assessment in Bilingual Turkish-Speaking Preschoolers With Developmental Language Disorders: A Tutorial

Purpose: Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a common childhood disorder that hinders children from functioning in other developmental areas, such as social–emotional and cognitive domains. Consequently, a comprehensive speech and language assessment of children is of great importance. Of concern, however, is the challenge for speech and language pathologists to assess the speech and language skills of bilingual children. This article aims to inform clinicians, researchers, and other experts working with bilingual Turkish-speaking children with DLD about bilingual language assessment. Method: The current literature on Turkish–English bilingual language acquisition and bilingual language assessment is reviewed, and the general characteristics of bilingual development are reported. In order to understand how the first language affects the second language, a contrastive analysis of the Turkish and English languages is summarized. A case study is described to highlight essential factors to take into account when creating a comprehensive language assessment battery for Turkish, covering all areas impacted by DLD. Results: The results of the proposed language assessment protocol are analyzed, and its practical use is discussed. Additionally, the case study child's strengths and the skills requiring support are interpreted with regard to their implications for daily life activities and prospective academic requirements. Conclusions: This tutorial highlights the importance of comprehensive language assessment for the differential diagnosis of DLD in bilinguals as the most essential step to develop an appropriate intervention program and counseling procedures. Such assessment considers individual as well as cultural differences of children and their family members.

The Association between the Dental Status and Tongue Thrust Habits of Latvian Preschool Children and Their Mothers' Oral Health Knowledge.

The aim of this study was to describe the factors that affect the normal dental development of preschool children in Latvia, and to investigate sources that mothers use to get information on children's oral health. A cross-sectional study was performed in two kindergartens in Latvia (cluster sampling). The study sample comprised 141 child-mother pairs of preschool children aged 4-7 years. The dental situation of all children was assessed including evaluation by an orthodontist and a speech therapist, and mothers of children filled out the survey on oral health-related habits and information about it. We described individually factors related to orthodontal situations, children's speech problems, and factors that can affect tongue thrust. We investigated relationships between sources of mothers' information and oral health-related behaviors using univariate (Kruskal-Wallis test, a chi-squared test, a Fisher test, or Cramer's V test) and multivariate analyses. We built a multiple logistic regression model adjusted for the demographic and oral health-related factors to investigate the factors associated with tongue thrust. Results of multiple logistic regression were presented with odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). In total, 36.9% of children grazed vegetables several times a week, and 61.0% cleaned their teeth twice a day. Of mothers, 12% did not receive any information about child dental care from their general physician, and 23.4% found the received information insufficient. A total of 43.3% of mothers received oral health-related information from friends, and it was significantly related to less carbonated water (p < 0.01), more help during teeth cleaning (p = 0.03), starting cleaning teeth in earlier age (p = 0.03), and more frequent visits to a child dentist (p = 0.03). A lack of knowledge was found to be prominent in mothers of kindergarten children in Latvia, and most of them received information not from official sources such as their general physician. This can be related to some problems in oral health behaviors and oral health-related diseases. Communication among dental health specialists, state authorities, and families is crucial for the improvement of children's dental situation.

BENEFIT OF USING APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS (ABA) IN STIMULUSING SPEECH IN AUTISTIC CHILDREN

This Course Conclusion Paper’s main focus is to address the benefit of using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in stimulating speech in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). ABA is a methodology based on behavioral principles that aims to improve and strengthen socially important behaviors, including communication skills. The main objective of this research is to indicate the benefits of using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to stimulate speech in autistic children. The aim is to analyze how this methodology can contribute to the development of these children’s communicative skills, promoting their better social inclusion and quality of life. The research question that guides this study is: “What are the benefits of using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in stimulating autistic children? And why does this method have better results?” To answer this question, a literature review, case study analysis and direct observation in therapeutic contexts were carried out. The results indicate that ABA, when applied correctly and consistently, can generate significant progress in the development of speech and the general communicative capacity of children with autism. This should be an individualized structure and the focus on positive reinforcement that characterizes this approach. This work hopes to contribute to the understanding of the benefits of ABA in the field of Speech Therapy and to the promotion of more effective therapeutic practices in the treatment of children with ASD.

Prevalence and Risk Factors of Speech and Language Disorders in Young Children: A Cross-Sectional Study In a Pediatric Rehabilitation Ward

Background: Speech and language disorders in young children can have substantial impacts on their social, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive development. Understanding the prevalence and risk factors associated with these disorders is crucial for early intervention and effective treatment strategies. Objective: This study aimed to assess the prevalence and risk factors of speech and language disorders in young children presenting to a Pediatric Rehabilitation Ward, to identify the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics associated with these conditions, and to evaluate the therapy patterns utilized in management. Methods: An observational cross-sectional study was conducted at the Pediatric Rehabilitation Ward of Liaquat University Medical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro Hospital, from May to August 2022. A total of 400 patients, aged 2-10 years and diagnosed with speech-language disorders by a psychiatrist, were included through non-probability convenience sampling. Data on demographics, socioeconomic status, therapy patterns, and diagnostic information were collected through questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 25. Results: The study found that language delay was the most prevalent disorder, affecting 61.8% of the children. Males were more frequently affected (68.5%). Seizures were the most commonly reported medical condition in the sample (18.5%). The mean age at diagnosis was 3.58 years. A considerable number of children (38.0%) had a positive family history of speech-language disorders. Socioeconomic analysis revealed that a majority of the children (68%) came from middle-class families. The study also found that combined speech and behavioral therapy was the most common treatment approach (28.8%). Conclusion: Language delay is the most common speech-language disorder among children in this study, with a higher prevalence in males and those from middle-class families. Early detection and a multidisciplinary approach to treatment, including both speech and behavioral therapy, are imperative for effective management.

Studies on the association of genes with language disorders in the post-genomic era

Since genetic research entered the post-genomic era, the high heritability of language disorders has been confirmed. A variety of genetic-related diseases may cause various types of language disorders in children and/or adults. This article has summarized language disorders and their underlying mechanisms by searching the Web of Science database over the last decade, and combed the genetic researches for dyslexia, frontotemporal degeneration, specific language disorder, childhood speech apraxia and other single diseases that are strongly associated with the language disorders. It also provided a discussion over the co-occurrence of multiple diseases, with an aim to revealing the genetic association and/or pathogenetic mechanism in order to provide inspiration for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of language disorders.

Speech, language, functional communication, psychosocial outcomes and QOL in school-age children with congenital unilateral hearing loss.

Children with early-identified unilateral hearing loss (UHL) might be at risk for delays in early speech and language, functional communication, psychosocial skills, and quality of life (QOL). However, a paucity of relevant research prohibits strong conclusions. This study aimed to provide new evidence relevant to this issue. Participants were 34 children, ages 9;0 to 12;7 (years;months), who were identified with UHL via newborn hearing screening. Nineteen children had been fitted with hearing devices, whereas 15 had not. Assessments included measures of speech perception and intelligibility; language and cognition; functional communication; psychosocial abilities; and QOL. As a group, the children scored significantly below the normative mean and more than one standard deviation below the typical range on speech perception in spatially separated noise, and significantly below the normative mean on written passage comprehension. Outcomes in other aspects appear typical. There was however considerable within participant variation in the children's degree of hearing loss over time, raising the possibility that this pattern of results might change as children get older. The current study also revealed that participants with higher levels of nonverbal ability demonstrated better general language skills and better ability to comprehend written passages. By contrast, neither perception of speech in collocated noise nor fitting with a hearing device accounted for unique variance in outcome measures. Future research should, however, evaluate the fitting of hearing devices using random assignment of participants to groups in order to avoid any confounding influence of degree of hearing loss or children's past/current level of progress.

Can Playing a Game Improve Children's Speech Recognition? A Preliminary Study of Implicit Talker Familiarity Effects.

The goal was to evaluate whether implicit talker familiarization via an interactive computer game, designed for this study, could improve children's word recognition in classroom noise. It was hypothesized that, regardless of age, children would perform better when recognizing words spoken by the talker who was heard during the game they played. Using a one-group pretest-posttest experimental design, this study examined the impact of short-term implicit voice exposure on children's word recognition in classroom noise. Implicit voice familiarization occurred via an interactive computer game, played at home for 10 min a day for 5 days. In the game, children (8-12 years) heard one voice, intended to become the "familiar talker." Pre- and postfamiliarization, children identified words in prerecorded classroom noise. Four conditions were tested to evaluate talker familiarity and generalization effects. Results demonstrated an 11% improvement when recognizing words spoken by the voice heard in the game ("familiar talker"). This was observed only for words that were heard in the game and did not generalize to unfamiliarized words. Before familiarization, younger children had poorer recognition than older children in all conditions; however, after familiarization, there was no effect of age on performance for familiarized stimuli. Implicit short-term exposure to a talker has the potential to improve children's speech recognition. Therefore, leveraging talker familiarity through gameplay shows promise as a viable method for improving children's speech-in-noise recognition. However, given that improvements did not generalize to unfamiliarized words, careful consideration of exposure stimuli is necessary to optimize this approach.

ChildAugment: Data augmentation methods for zero-resource children's speaker verification.

The accuracy of modern automatic speaker verification (ASV) systems, when trained exclusively on adult data, drops substantially when applied to children's speech. The scarcity of children's speech corpora hinders fine-tuning ASV systems for children's speech. Hence, there is a timely need to explore more effective ways of reusing adults' speech data. One promising approach is to align vocal-tract parameters between adults and children through children-specific data augmentation, referred here to as ChildAugment. Specifically, we modify the formant frequencies and formant bandwidths of adult speech to emulate children's speech. The modified spectra are used to train emphasized channel attention, propagation, and aggregation in time-delay neural network recognizer for children. We compare ChildAugment against various state-of-the-art data augmentation techniques for children's ASV. We also extensively compare different scoring methods, including cosine scoring, probabilistic linear discriminant analysis (PLDA), and neural PLDA. We also propose a low-complexity weighted cosine score for extremely low-resource children ASV. Our findings on the CSLU kids corpus indicate that ChildAugment holds promise as a simple, acoustics-motivated approach, for improving state-of-the-art deep learning based ASV for children. We achieve up to 12.45% (boys) and 11.96% (girls) relative improvement over the baseline. For reproducibility, we provide the evaluation protocols and codes here.

Teacher Strategies In Handling Children With Disorders Communication (Case Study at SLB Pulau Punjung Dharmasraya)

There aren't many studies that address ABK's speech delay, but research reports on similar topics can be found easily. Therefore, the author concentrates on explaining the teacher's way of dealing with children's speech delays. This study aims to find out how teachers and parents deal with children with speech delay disorders. This research was conducted using qualitative case study method. The results showed that some of the children's characteristics were unable to understand and respond to peers, parents, or adults around them; they were less likely to talk (quiet), unable to form simple sentences when asked something; they often used vague, rigid, or stammered language because they lacked vocabulary; and they usually used confused language when speaking. To encourage delays in children's speech, strategy treatment is carried out: 1) training children to speak correctly, slowly, and repeatedly; and 2) always pay attention to grammar when speaking.

Gender-related variation in /s/ and /ʃ/ in child-directed speech

Previous research showed that 3-year-old children assigned male at birth begin to produce /s/ differently from children assigned female at birth (Munson, Koeppe &amp; Lackas, 2022). This mirrors the differences in /s/ found between cisgender men and women in American English (e.g., Jongman, Wayland &amp; Wong, 2000; Munson, McDonald, DeBoe, &amp; White, 2006). The current study investigates whether children are exposed to the gender-marking /s/ variants through child-directed speech, a hypothesis suggested by Foulkes, Docherty, and Watt (2005). We collected speech samples from 36 mothers of children aged 2 to 3 years through a story-reading task. Mothers read a male-themed story and a female-themed story to their children. We also measured mothers’ attitude towards their children’s gendered behavior. Spectral characteristics of /s/ and /ʃ/ were measured. As there was no evidence that /ʃ/ marks gender, the acoustic characteristics of /ʃ/ is measured to control for the potential influence of anatomical variation on fricative acoustics. Analysis is ongoing, and will examine whether the acoustic characteristics of /s/ in male- and female-themed stories resemble the male- and female-typed /s/ variants found in previous studies. The results of this study will inform models of the development of gendered speech in children.