Speech perception: Auditory and visual cue integration in children with and without phonological disorder in voiceless fricatives

ABSTRACT

The literature reports contradictory results regarding the influence of visual cues on speech perception tasks in children with phonological disorder (PD). This study aimed to compare the performance of children with (n = 15) and without PD (n = 15) in audiovisual perception task in voiceless fricatives. Assuming that PD could be associated with an inability to integrate phonological information from two sensory sources, we presumed that children with PD would present difficulties in integrating auditory and visual cues compared to typical children. A syllable identification task was conducted. The stimuli were presented according to four conditions: auditory-only (AO); visual-only (VO); audiovisual congruent (AV+); and audiovisual incongruent (AV-). The percentages of correct answers and the respective reaction times in the AO, VO, and AV+ conditions were considered for the analysis. The correct percentage of auditory stimuli was considered for the AV- condition, as well as the percentage of perceptual preference: auditory, visual, and/or illusion (McGurk effect), with the respective reaction time. In comparing the four conditions, children with PD presented a lower number of correct answers and longer reaction time than children with typical development, mainly for the VO. Both groups showed a preference for auditory stimuli for the AV- condition. However, children with PD showed higher percentages for visual perceptual preference and the McGurk effect than typical children. The superiority of typical children over PD children in auditory-visual speech perception depends on type of stimuli and condition of presentation.

KEYWORDS:

• Audiovisual speech perception
• phonological disorder
• identification task

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank FAPESP - São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (grants numbers 2019/12749-2 and 2020/03990-5) and CNPq - National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (grant number 301735/2019-0) for the funding of the research whose results were reported in the present paper. This study was also partially financed by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - Brazil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2024.2328792

Notes

¹ BP presents a vocalic inventory composed of 7 vowels (/i, e, ε, a, ɔ, o, u/). Five of these vowels (/i,e, a, o, u/) can be nasalized phonetically or phonologically. The consonantal inventory is composed of 19 phonemes divided: 6 stops (/p,b,t,d,k,g/), 6 fricatives (/,f,v,s,z,∫,ᴣ/), 3 nasals (/m,n,ɲ/, 2 lateral liquids (/l, ʎ/) and 2 non-lateral liquids (/ɾ, R/). The syllables have a maximal structure of C₁C₂VVC₃C₄. At least a vowel should occur in the BP syllable. Whether two vowels occur, one will be a glide (/y/ or /w/), which may precede or follow the vowel. In the case of two prevocalic consonants that occur, C2 will necessarily be a liquid: /r/ or /l/. When one post-vocalic consonant occurs, this position may be filled by four archiphonemes: vibrant /R/, lateral /L/, fricative /S/, and nasal /N/; whereas when C₄ occurs, this consonant will be obligatory /S/ and C₃ may be filled by /L/, /R/ or /N/ (Barbosa & Albano, 2004; Silva, 1999).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico [301735/2019-0]; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo [2019/12749-2].