Stop consonant voicing and intraoral pressure contours in women and children

Abstract

Previous authors have established that stop consonant voicing is more limited in young children than adults, and have ascribed this to immature vocal-tract pressure management. Physical development relevant to speech aerodynamics continues into adolescence, suggesting that consonant voicing development may also persist into the school-age years. This study explored the relationship between stop consonant voicing and intraoral pressure contours in women, $5\text{year}$ olds, and $10\text{year}$ olds. Productions of intervocalic /p b/ were recorded from eight speakers at each age. Measures were made of stop consonant voicing and $\delta$ , a measure designed to characterize the time course of intraoral pressure increase in stops, following Müller and Brown [Speech and Language: Advances in Basic Research and Practice, edited by N. Lass (Academic, Madison, 1980), Vol. 4, pp. 318–389]. Age effects for stop consonant voicing and $\delta$ were not statistically significant, but correlations between $\delta$ and stop voicing were less often significant and sometimes reversed in the children, providing some evidence of immature aerodynamic control. The current data, as well as those of Müller and Brown, also show that the $\delta$ measure may yield some paradoxical values, indicating that more work is needed on methods of assessing time-varying characteristics of intraoral pressure.