Haskins Publications

Number	667
Year	1989
Drawer	12
Entry Date	11/15/1999
Authors	Nittrouer, S., Studdert-Kennedy, M., & McGowan, R. S.
Contact
Publication	Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 32, 120-132.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0667.pdf
Abstract	Tested whether phoneme-sized segments would emerge as functional units of perceptuomotor control from a child's gradual reorganization of the gestures forming its early words or syllables by investigating the acoustic structure of syllables produced by 32 children (aged 3-7 yrs) and 8 adults (aged 20-21 yrs). Fricative-vowel syllables spoken by subjects were analyzed acoustically to determine how well different syllables-initial fricatives were contrasted and how strongly they were affected by vocalic context. Results indicated 2 independent developmental trends: The extent to which subjects differentiated between //I/ and /s/ increased with age, while the extent to which they coarticulated each fricative with its following vowel decreased. Results support the hypothesis that children initially organize their speech gestures over a domain at least the size of the syllable and only gradually differentiate the syllable into patterns of gestures more closely aligned with its perceived segmental components.
Notes