Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Folia Phoniatr Logop. 2022;74(6):392-406. doi: 10.1159/000524395. Epub 2022 Apr 1.
The aim of the current study was to examine the effect of listeners' experience with child speech and phonetic training on perceptual judgment of children's word-initial /l/ productions. The acoustic correlates of acceptable and misarticulated productions of /l/ and their relation to listeners' experience with child speech were explored.
Three listener groups listened to children's word-initial /l/ productions embedded in monosyllabic words and judged the "/l/-likeness" of the productions using a Visual Analog Scale (VAS). Three listener groups included (a) speech-language pathologists with at least 10 years of experience (SLP group), (b) graduate students in speech-language pathology (GS group), and (c) naïve listeners with no clinical phonetics experience (NL group). Acoustic correlates (both static and dynamic measures) of listeners' perception of /l/ sounds were also investigated.
While mean VAS ratings did not differ significantly by listener group, the SLP group used a wider range of the VAS than the GS and NL groups. Correlational analysis between the static measure (F2-F1 values) and mean listener ratings showed that listeners tend to perceive sounds with the highest F2-F1 values more as /j/ than /l/, while those with the lowest F2-F1 value were perceived more as /w/ than /l/, especially for sounds that are in between phonemic categories. Listener ratings were not highly correlated with dynamic measures.
These results suggest that experienced listeners use the VAS more continuously than less experienced listeners to indicate perception of subphonemic features of children's productions of /l/, and that their ratings correlate with acoustic measures. Furthermore, listeners with experience with child speech and phonetic training are more sensitive to subphonemic features of children's productions of /l/, especially for misarticulated productions. This supports the clinical use of VAS for perceptual judgments of children's /l/ productions.
本研究旨在探讨听众对儿童语音的熟悉程度和语音训练对感知判断儿童单词起始/l/发音的影响。本研究探讨了可接受和发音错误的/l/的声学特征及其与听众对儿童语音熟悉程度的关系。
三组听众分别听了单音节单词中儿童单词起始/l/的发音，并使用视觉模拟量表（VAS）对发音的/l/相似度进行判断。三组听众包括：（a）有至少 10 年经验的言语语言病理学家（SLP 组）；（b）言语语言病理学研究生（GS 组）；（c）没有临床语音学经验的非专业听众（NL 组）。还研究了听众感知/l/声音的声学特征（静态和动态测量）。
尽管听众组的平均 VAS 评分没有显著差异，但 SLP 组比 GS 组和 NL 组使用了更广泛的 VAS 范围。静态测量（F2-F1 值）与平均听众评分之间的相关分析表明，听众倾向于将 F2-F1 值最高的声音感知为/j/而不是/l/，而 F2-F1 值最低的声音则更多地被感知为/w/而不是/l/，尤其是在处于音位类别之间的声音。听众评分与动态测量相关性不高。
这些结果表明，经验丰富的听众比经验较少的听众更连续地使用 VAS 来表示对儿童/l/发音的亚音位特征的感知，并且他们的评分与声学测量相关。此外，有儿童语音和语音训练经验的听众对儿童/l/发音的亚音位特征更敏感，尤其是对发音错误的发音。这支持了 VAS 在儿童/l/发音感知判断中的临床应用。
