The developmental trajectory of children's perception and production of English /r/-/l/

Abstract

The English /l-r/ distinction is difficult to learn for some second language learners as well as for native-speaking children. This study examines the use of the second (F2) and third (F3) formants in the production and perception of /l/ and /r/ sounds in 4-, 4.5-, 5.5-, and 8.5-yr-old English-speaking children. The children were tested with elicitation and repetition tasks as well as word recognition tasks. The results indicate that whereas young children's /l/ and /r/ in both production and perception show fairly high accuracy and were well defined along the primary acoustic parameter that differentiates them, F3 frequency, these children were still developing in regard to the integration of the secondary cue, F2 frequency. The pattern of development is consistent with the distribution of these features in the ambient input relative to the /l/ and /r/ category distinction: F3 is robust and reliable, whereas F2 is less reliable in distinguishing /l/ and /r/. With delayed development of F2, cue weighting of F3 and F2 for the English /l-r/ categorization seems to continue to develop beyond 8 or 9 yr of age. These data are consistent with a rather long trajectory of phonetic development whereby native categories are refined and tuned well into childhood.

Dimension‐Based Statistical Learning Affects Both Speech Perception and Production

“…In the present study, there was no correlation between individual participant’s degree of perceptual down-weighting and the change in their reliance on F0 to distinguish voicing categories in their own speech across the Canonical and Reverse blocks (r = .14, p = .493). The lack of correlation in perception and production cue weights may not be surprising in light of several studies demonstrating that individuals do not necessarily rely upon the same cues in perception that they do in production (Idemaru & Holt, 2013; Schertz, Cho, Lotto, & Warner, 2015; Shultz et al, 2012). Consistent with other studies, we observe adaptation in speech production as a result of exposure to perceptual regularities.…”

“…In categorizing /r/-/l/ sounds varying in both the second and third formant onset frequencies, native English listeners rely much more on the highly-diagnostic third formant frequency, giving it greater perceptual weight than the second formant frequency (Ingvalson, McClelland, & Holt, 2011; Iverson et al, 2003; Yamada & Tohkura, 1992). Perceptual weights appear to be built up over a long developmental course extending into late childhood or early adolescence (Hazan & Barrett, 2000; Idemaru & Holt, 2013; Lowenstein & Nittrouer, 2008; Nittrouer, 2004; Nittrouer, Lowenstein, & Packer, 2009) and, once established, they are quite stable (Idemaru et al, 2012). Thus, at least within a language community, there is a rather close correspondence between the long-term regularities of how acoustic dimensions relate to phonetic categories across speech productions and the weight of listeners’ reliance on these dimensions in speech perception.…”

Children’s perception of their synthetically corrected speech production

“…Considering that misproduced speech sounds may take different acoustic-phonetic forms (e.g. Forrest, Weismer, Elbert, & Dinnsen, 1994;Idemaru & Holt, 2013), and the variation between individuals in what acoustic cues are involved in their perceptual phonological decisions (e.g. Nittrouer, 2005;Rvachew & Jamieson, 1989), it is reasonable to assume that the critical distinction is instead between ''my way of producing X'' versus ''other ways of producing X''.…”

“…However, a large variability is often observed; some children have little or no perceptual difficulties, whereas others have more pervasive perceptual problems (Bird & Bishop, 1992;Rvachew & Jamieson, 1989). Studies relating acoustic features of individual children's speech production to acoustic-phonetic detail in their speech perception have been rare, but recent findings suggest that the links between production and perception of /l/ and /r/ are not very systematic in children with typical speech (Idemaru & Holt, 2013). It remains unclear, however, to what extent these findings would generalize to children with speech sound disorders, and/or to other speech sounds.…”

“…Studies applying this experimental design have shown that the acoustic cue weighting strategies are not universal -different listeners (or groups of listeners) rely on different acoustic information when mapping speech sounds to phonemic categories (e.g. Hazan & Barrett, 2000;Idemaru & Holt, 2013;Nittrouer, 2005;Rvachew & Jamieson, 1989).…”