Li Yani, Li Qun, Du Yihang, Wang Lili, Li Lin, Wen Jian, Zheng Yun
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Department of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Front Pediatr. 2025 Jan 7;12:1465454. doi: 10.3389/fped.2024.1465454. eCollection 2024.
This study investigates Mandarin-speaking children's acquisition of aspirated/unaspirated voiceless consonants in terms of perception and production, to track children's developmental profile and explore the factors that may affect their acquisition, as well as the possible association between perception and production.
Mandarin-speaking children ( = 95) aged 3-5 and adults ( = 20) participated in (1) a perception test designed based on the minimal pairs of unaspirated/aspirated consonants in the quiet and noisy conditions respectively; (2) a production test where participants produced the target words, with syllable-initial consonants focusing on aspiration and non-aspiration. Six pairs of unaspirated/aspirated consonants in Mandarin were included.
(1) Children's perception and production accuracy of aspirated and unaspirated consonants increased with age. Five-year-olds achieved high accuracy in the perception under the quiet condition and in the production (over 90%), though not yet adult-like. (2) Noise adversely affected children's perception, with all child groups showing poor performance in the noisy condition. In terms of perception, stops were more challenging to children than affricates, but in terms of production, children performed better on stops. Furthermore, the presence of noise had a greater detrimental effect on the perception of aspirated consonants compared to unaspirated ones. (3) A weak positive correlation was found between children's perception of consonant aspiration in the quiet condition and their production.
The findings indicate that age, aspiration state, and manner of articulation (MOA) would affect children's acquisition of consonant aspiration. Although 5-year-olds have almost acquired aspirated/unaspirated consonants, compared to adults, the perception of consonant aspiration in noise remains a challenge for children.
本研究从感知和发音方面调查说普通话儿童对送气/不送气清辅音的习得情况，以追踪儿童的发展概况，探索可能影响其习得的因素，以及感知与发音之间可能存在的关联。
3至5岁的说普通话儿童（n = 95）和成年人（n = 20）参与了：（1）一项分别基于不送气/送气辅音最小对设计的感知测试，测试在安静和嘈杂条件下进行；（2）一项发音测试，参与者说出目标单词，音节首辅音重点关注送气和不送气情况。普通话中的六对不送气/送气辅音被纳入测试。
（1）儿童对送气和不送气辅音的感知和发音准确率随年龄增长而提高。五岁儿童在安静条件下的感知和发音准确率较高（超过90%），尽管尚未达到成人水平。（2）噪音对儿童的感知有不利影响，所有儿童组在嘈杂条件下表现不佳。在感知方面，塞音对儿童来说比塞擦音更具挑战性，但在发音方面，儿童在塞音上表现更好。此外，与不送气辅音相比，噪音对送气辅音感知的不利影响更大。（3）在安静条件下，儿童对辅音送气的感知与发音之间存在微弱的正相关。
研究结果表明，年龄、送气状态和发音方式会影响儿童对辅音送气的习得。尽管五岁儿童几乎已习得送气/不送气辅音，但与成年人相比，在噪音环境中对辅音送气的感知对儿童来说仍然是一项挑战。
