Fricative productions of Mandarin-speaking children with cerebral palsy: the case of five-year-olds

ABSTRACT

This study aimed at improving the understanding of speech characteristics of fricatives produced by five-year-old Mandarin-acquiring children with cerebral palsy (CP). Productions from nine CP children and nine gender-and-age-matched typically developing (TD) children were collected and analyzed. Results from transcription indicated that the CP group had lower production accuracy rates for all the five fricatives in Mandarin Chinese. Additionally, when the CP children failed to articulate the target fricative segments, they tended to delete them or convert them into non-continuant segments. Results from acoustic analyses indicated that the M2 values of the labiodental [f] and the M1 and M2 values of the alveolar [s] were higher among the CP children. The experimental results revealed that: (1) Observable differences were available once the age of the groups was properly controlled and acoustical measurements were adopted; (2) the lack of finer-grained speech motor control abilities among CP children were reflected in the M1 and M2 values; (3) for segments at the anterior places, the clinical group failed to extend the articulatory gestures to the desirable positions. It is suggested that future studies focusing on different age groups and children with different native languages would help to approach the nature of articulatory barriers among individuals with CP.

KEYWORDS:

• Cerebral palsy
• speech motor control
• spectral moment analysis
• fricative
• Mandarin Chinese

Acknowledgments

For helpful suggestions and comments on the draft of this paper, we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Editors of Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics. We sincerely appreciate the support from the families of the children in this study. A special thank you is extended to Dr. Mary Beckman and Dr. Jan Edwards. The script used for fricative analysis was modified based on the one acquired through the international collaboration of the paidologos project among Dr. Mary Beckman, Dr. Jan Edwards, and Dr. Li-mei Chen.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the research grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan awarded to Dr. Chin-Ting Liu (MOST 107-2410-H-012-002) and Dr. Li-mei Chen (MOST 104-2410-H-006-061). Data reported in this study were from MOST 104-2410-H-006-061.