ASA 125th Meeting Ottawa 1993 May

3aSP11. Developmental phonological impairment: An acoustic description of improved production.

Kim A. Wilcox

Sherrill R. Morris

Dept. of Speech-Lang.-Hear.: Sci. and Disord., Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045

Kathleen A. Siren

St. John's Univ., Jamaica, NY 11439

Although misarticulation of speech is one of the most common communication problems of young children, there is little available information concerning the phonetic form of young children's errors. This paper reports on a longitudinal analysis of the acoustic properties of speech samples from two phonologically impaired children. Both children were enrolled in remediation programs that focused on the correct production of stops and fricatives. Bimonthly samples were taken from each child over a period of several months coinciding with significant improvement in perceived phonetic accuracy. Both durational and spectral aspects of the children's speech were monitored throughout the period. The relationships between changes in specific acoustic properties and correct perception as well as interspeaker differences are discussed.