Perception of the /t/-/k/ contrast by Mandarin-speaking children with Speech Sound Disorders

ABSTRACT

Mandarin-speaking children with speech sound disorders (SSD) often show difficulties in producing alveolar and velar plosives contrasts (e.g., /t/ vs. /k/). But it remains unclear whether such phonological disorder correlates with the perception of the contrast between alveolar and velar plosives. The present study assessed whether Mandarin-speaking children with SSD who substituted [t] for /k/ in production could perceptually distinguish between /t/ and /k/, and compared their results with those from typically developing children (TDC) and typically adults (TA). We adopted a categorical perception paradigm with a /ta/-/ka/ continuum. The continuum included nine stimuli, which were synthesized from a naturally-produced /ta/. The SSD, TDC, and TA groups completed both identification and discrimination tasks that required perceptual judgment of individual stimulus and pairs of stimuli from the continuum. The results showed that the TDC and TA groups showed typical patterns of categorical perception in the continuum. But the SSD group only reached or was slightly above the chance level in the identification task and did not show significant difference among pairs of stimuli in the discrimination task. Their performance was significantly different from that of the TDC and TA groups and lacked typical patterns of categorical perception. The results suggested that their perception of /t/ vs. /k/ may be impaired. Considering the SSD group’s speech errors, this perception defect may be a cause for their tendency of substituting [t] for /k/ in production.

KEYWORDS:

• Speech sound disorders
• mandarin-speaking children
• categorical perception
• /t/-/k/ contrast

Acknowledgments

This study received partial support from Teaching and Development Grant (6000737) at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and Research and Development Project (EDB(LE)/P&R/EL/175/12) by the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research of The Government of Hong Kong S.A.R., and Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2020A1515111034), Medical Science and Technology Research Fund of Guangdong Province (A2021363), and Medical research project of Foshan Health and Family Planning Bureau (20210011). We thank our assistants at CityU for their work: Changhe Chen for preparing and testing the stimuli, Ting Zhang for literature retrieval and processing of speech data, and Yihan Guan for conducting initial statistical analysis.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation [2020A1515111034]; CLASS Capacity Building Grant and Teaching Development Grant at City University of Hong Kong [#6000737]; Medical research project of Foshan Health and Family Planning Bureau [20210011]; Medical Science and Technology Research Fund of Guangdong Province [A2021363].