Aspects of speech production in typically-developing children
Laura L. KoenigHaskins Labs and LIU–
Brooklyn
Some significant people(non-exhaustive cast of characters)
Karen Landahl
Leigh Lisker
Arthur Abramson
Richard SchwartzKatherine Harris
Richard McGowan
Anders Löfqvist
In memory of Karen Landahl
1989: UPenn & Haskins
• Leigh Lisker …Made a suggestion to
• Arthur Abramson leading to …
Photo credit to Philip Rubin
Thursdays with Leigh and Arthur
• Lunch at the College Spa [“the trough”]• Wendy in soundbooth B: The
windowless guts of 270 Crown Street• Lipton tea (courtesy Haskins) and
Macintosh apples (courtesy Arthur) at midnight in the basement kitchen
• Bedtime: Signup sheets and room precedents
1991: CUNY & Haskins
• Thanks to Kathy for talking with me in soundbooth B... etc.
• Enter Anders and Richard
Airflow data: Papa HopperAcoustics
Airflow/h/
Airflow data: Papa SapperAcoustics
Airflow/s/
Laryngeal coarticulation in adults
Peak flow (l/m)
Löfqvist, Koenig & McGowan, 1995
Airflow data showing effects of vocal-fold abduction
Laryngeal control & Voice Onset Time
• Lisker & Abramson (1964)– Timing of voicing relative to stop release– Serves to characterize stop distinctions
across many languages– Googlescholar citations: 1579
• Subsequent transillumination studies (Lisker et al., 1969): Aspiration associated with abduction close to release.
• Löfqvist (1992): VOT-peak abduction correlations pretty good but not perfect.
VOT in Development (1)Developmental studies of voicing in stops
Malcolm S. Preston, Grace Yeni-Komshian, Rachel E. Stark & Diane
Kewley-Port
Haskins Laboratories Status Report: SR-13/14
1 January 1968 - 30 June 1968V
VOT in Development (2)• Kewley Port & Preston (1974) (and others).• Hierarchy of “difficulty”:– Voiceless unaspirated [p t k] (short-lag) appear
first (Jakobson)Subsequently:– Voiced [b d g]: Require aerodynamic control
[more on this later]– Voiceless aspirated [ph th kh]: Require timing
control.• Assumption: Children have an established abduction
gesture; all they need to do is time it correctly.V
An aerodynamic study of consonantal voicing control in normal men, women, and 5-
year-olds
CUNY 1998
Katherine HarrisRichard SchwartzAnders Löfqvist
“Do something developmental”
“Look at /h/”
VOTh*
*A measure proposed by Richard McGowan, and it made some sense.
V O T (E)
Results (1): VOT and VOTh
100%
0%
50%
0%
Adult male Adult female
50 ms50 msKoenig,
2000
VOT and VOTh (2)
100%
0%
50%
0%
5-year-old
100 ms
Correlations for all speakers (N=21):
VOTh x VOT /p/: r =.64*VOTh x VOT /t/: r =.65*VOT /p/ x VOT /t/: r = .78* Koenig,
2000
/h/ profiles: Intraspeaker variability
Koenig, 2000
Inconsistent abduction in children
Koenig, 2000
Implications• At 5 years of age, many children still have
highly inconsistent laryngeal activity for /h/—where the only requirement is a laryngeal adjustment.
• If /h/ shows extreme variability in abduction extent and temporal patterns, it is sensible to infer similarly variable abduction gestures for /p t/ (probably more difficult; interarticulator coordination).
• VOT in development is not only about the timing of abduction.
3 more aerodynamic studies
1) Aerodynamic control in voiced stops2) Laryngeal and supralaryngeal coordination in fricatives (including /h/); assessment of variability3) Laryngeal coarticulation (following Löfqvist et al., 1995)
Methods for the 3 studies
• 10 children 4–5, 9–10 years; 10 women• /h s z p b/ in VCV contexts; 25-30 repetitions each
Cute picture with kids
3 more aerodynamic studies1) Aerodynamic control in voiced stops• Laryngeal coarticulation (following
Löfqvist et al., 1995 and Nittrouer et al., 1989)
• Laryngeal and supralaryngeal coordination in fricatives (including /h/)
• Recall: Kewley-Port & Preston: [b d g] appear later because of aerodynamic complications
Stop consonant voicing as “hard”
• Closing the upper vocal tract => intraoral pressure (Pio) builds up.
• Maintaining phonation requires a translaryngeal pressure drop across the vocal folds
• Adults perform compensatory maneuvers that slow Pio buildup; allow voicing to persist
• Obstruent devoicing is “phonetically natural”
Even harder in kids• Compared to adults, children have– Small supraglottal cavities– Vocal fold characteristics (stiffness, thickness,
damping) that probably require higher transglottal pressures for phonation (cf. modeling work of Lucero & Koenig, 2005)
• Past studies inferred that children have limited aerodynamic control in service of voicing, but no direct data comparing Pio and voicing in children.
Measuring Pio: Müller & Brown (1980)
• Measures of voicing and Pio in men AND
• Aerodynamic modeling• Shape of Pio contour: Slow-rising
contours as evidence of aerodynamic control (compensatory maneuvers)
Intraoral pressure signals: Papa Bopper
acoustics
flow
pressure p b p
The d measure (Müller & Brown, 1980)
d > 0: fast-rising (like /p/) d < 0: slow-rising (like /b/)
Results: VoicingAbsolute: C * Age NS Age x C
p=.07Percent: C * Age NS Age x C *
Koenig & Lucero, 2008
b p
•Some evidence that voicing distinctions are less pronounced 5-year-olds than adults, as predicted from past work.
Koenig & Lucero, 2008
b p
Results: d C: * Age: p=.02 Age x C:
p=.09
bp•Some evidence
that adults show greater aero-dynamic differentiation than children.
b
Koenig & Lucero, 2008
b p
Results: Pio differences related to voicing
b p
•Adults: All correlations significant and in expected direction.•Children less often significant, with some trends in the wrong direction. Clearer aerodynamic differen-tiation in adults.
Implications
•As predicted by Kewley-Port & Preston, and expected based on anatomical considerations, children do show less evidence of aerodynamic control of stop voicing than adults. In some cases, maybe even at 10 years of age.
3 more aerodynamic studies• Aerodynamic control in voiced stops2) Laryngeal and supralaryngeal coordination in fricatives (including /h/); assess variability• Laryngeal coarticulation (following
Löfqvist et al., 1995)
• High variability in development noted at least as early as 1969 (Eguchi & Hirsh).
Fricative development and production
• Sibilants often considered “difficult” : late/variable in acquisition, frequently affected by residual speech-sound disorders, susceptible in motor speech disorders, etc.
• Compare– /h/: VF abduction only– /z/: Tongue-tip constriction, min. abduction– /s/: VF abduction + TT constriction
/h/ and /s/ again•/h/: VF abduction
•/s/: abduction + tongue tip constriction
•measure VCV interval
Koenig, Lucero, & Perlman, 2008
Functional Data Analysis• Time-warp individual productions
signals to bring peaks/valleys into better alignment
• Extent of warping required yields measure of temporal (or phasing) variability
• Remaining variability in aligned signals: Amplitude variability with timing factored out
FDAoriginal /h/s
vertically align
time-align (warp)
resulting average
warping functions
amp. variab.
warping SD
amp. SD
Koenig, Lucero, & Perlman, 2008
Final FDA Output• Average signals, ±1 SD• Average warping and amplitude
variability indices (one number per C)
Indices: Group averages
Age * C * Age x C NS Age * C NS Age x C NS
s
hz
s
hz
Koenig, Lucero, & Perlman, 2008
Indices: Individual data
Koenig, Lucero, & Perlman, 2008
Indices: Individual data
Sum: Articulatory specificity•Variability is comparable across consonants in some speakers...•But in others (adults as well as children) variability may be higher in the larynx OR the tongue tip. •“Difficulty” of /s/ is not all about lingual control: there’s also an issue of aerodynamic control.•Speaker-specific patterns of variability: Not just “noise in the system”
Individual variability patterns
5yr
Ad.
h s z ≅ ≅
Koenig, Lucero, & Perlman, 2008
Individual variability patterns
5yr
10yr
s,z>h
Koenig, Lucero, & Perlman, 2008
Individual variability patterns
10yr
5yr
h,s>z
Koenig, Lucero, & Perlman, 2008
Sum: Time and amp. variability•Control of amplitude (gestural magnitude) appears to mature earlier, in general, than temporal phasing.•cf (?) Ferguson and Farwell’s (1975) account of phonological variability in very young children:
–Ways to say ‘pen’: [pʰɪn buã hɪn dɛdṇ mbõ]
•But Anders and colleagues find something different for lip data.
3 more aerodynamic studies• Aerodynamic control in voiced stops• Laryngeal and supralaryngeal
coordination in fricatives (including /h/)
• Laryngeal coarticulation (following Löfqvist et al., 1995 and Nittrouer et al., 1989)
Coarticulation in development
• Do children coarticulate “more” than adults?
• Yes: Nittrouer et al. (1989); theoretical work by Studdert-Kennedy (1981)
• No: (Kuipers, 1993; Smith et al., 1996)
• All past studies evaluated supraglottal articulators
DC flow: One adult
/h//p/
/b/
Koenig (2004)
Similar to
Löfqvist, Koenig & McGowan (1995)
Adults vs. children
Implications•Coarticulation, like everything else in development, is variable.•NB, current data assessed carryover coarticulation. Anticipatory more widely studied.•May need to temper claims about what coarticulation can tell us about overall articulatory organization.
Where does this leave us?• Physiological (non-acoustic) methods are
useful: Haskins tradition.• Development lasts a long time: Studies of 10
year olds can be informative.• What is the meaning of variability? – It complicates statements of adult-child
differences– It’s everywhere, but it’s not entirely
unpatterned.– Pathological noise vs. noise in typical
development?
Work supported by NIH grants DC–00865 and DC–04473–03
ReferencesKewley-Port, D., & Preston, M. (1974). Early apical stop production: A voice onset time analysis.
Journal of Phonetics, 2, 195–210.Koenig, L. L. (1998). An aerodynamic study of consonantal voicing control in normal men, women, and
5-year-olds. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, CUNY Graduate School and University Center.Koenig, L. L. (2000). Laryngeal factors in voiceless consonant production in men, women, and 5-year-
olds. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 43, 1211–1228.Koenig, L. L., & Lucero, J. C. (2008). Stop consonant voicing and intraoral pressure contours in women
and children. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 123, 1077–1088.Koenig, L. L., Lucero, J. C., and Perlman, E. (2008). Speech production variability in fricatives of
children and adults: Results of Functional Data Analysis. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 124.
Koenig, L. L. (2005). The development of laryngeal coarticulation: Comparison of women, 5-year-olds, and 10-year-olds. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 117, 2573.
Lisker, L., & Abramson, A. S. (1964). A cross-language study of voicing in initial stops: Acoustical measurements. Word, 20, 384–422.
Lisker, L., Abramson, A. S., Cooper, F. S., & Schvey, M. H. (1969). Transillumination of the larynx in running speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 45, 1544–1546.
Löfqvist, A. (1992). Acoustic and aerodynamic effects of interarticulator timing in voiceless consonants. Language and Speech, 35, 15–28.
Löfqvist, A., Koenig, L. L., & McGowan, R. S. (1995). Vocal tract aerodynamics in /aCa/ utterances: Measurements. Speech Communication, 16, 49–66.
Müller, E. M., & Brown, W. S. (1980). Variations in the supraglottal air pressure waveform and their articulatory interpretation. In N. Lass (Ed.), Speech and Language: Advances in Basic Research and Practice (Vol. 4, pp. 318–389). Madison: Academic Press, Inc.
Nittrouer, S., Studdert-Kennedy, M., & McGowan, R. S. (1989). The emergence of phonetic segments: Evidence from the spectral structure of fricative-vowel syllables spoken by children and adults. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 32, 120–132.
Preston, M. S., Yeni-Komshian, G., Stark, R. E., & Port, D. K. (1968). Developmental studies of voicing in stops. Haskins SR, 13/14, 181–184.