Desempenho Perceptivo-Auditivo De Crianças Na Identificação De Contrastes Fônicos

Abstract

■ ABSTRACT: This study aimed at investigating children's perceptual auditory performance in identifying phonemic contrast in Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP). The hypothesis is that the perceptual auditory acquisition develops in a gradual fashion, following a systematic acquisition order. We performed four identification tasks using the instrument PerceFAL with 66 children (of both genders) between 4-5 years old. The task relied on the presentation of an acoustic stimulus, through earphones, and the choice of an image corresponding to the word shown, having two image possibilities available on the computer screen. We compared both the stimulus length of time and reaction time of children automatically through the aid of the software PERCEVAL. The children's perceptual auditory performance occurred gradually and depended on the phonemic class. A greater accuracy regarding the phonemic contrast identification seems to follow the sequence: vowels, sonorants, stops e fricatives. The reaction time for the correct answers was shorter than that of the incorrect answers (except for the vowel class). From the perceptual maps, we verified that, within the vowel class, the anterior-posterior parameter plays an important role in perceptual salience. For the obstruents and sonorants (nasal and liquid), the acoustic cues that characterize voicing (in the case of obstruents) and the articulation mode (in the case of sonorants) are perceptually more robust than the cues from the point of articulation. Although speech perception should not be reduced to a mere sensory interpretation, the acoustic cues of speech segments exert influence on their categorization. ■

Relationship between speech production and perception in children with Speech Sound Disorders

“…A previous study of BP described that fricative class caused the highest incidence of acquisition problems for children with SSD (Patha & Takiuchi, 2008). Berti (2017b) verified that the children's auditory perceptual accuracy was dependent on the phonemic class, with lower perceptual accuracy for the fricative class. This author reinforces the important interaction between acoustic features and anatomical-physiological features of the human ear when explaining these results.…”

PERCEFAL: instrumento de avaliação da identificação de contrastes fonológicos

“…Subsequent researches (22,23,24,25) do not only adapted the task proposed in this classic study, but also showed the validity of this experimental paradigm to assess the identification ability. Studies (24,25) that have used PERCEFAL in their methodology, report a low percentage of non-response by children (between 2% and 5%), which indicates that the task is appropriate for its purpose.…”

“…Additionally, from the reaction time, it can be inferred whether the child is responding randomly or not. In previous studies (24,25) , it was verified that the reaction time presented by the children in the errors is always greater than the reaction time in the correct answers, which led the authors to consider the non-randomness of the answers.…”

“…Studies (24,25) that have used PERCEFAL in their methodology, report a low percentage of non-response by children (between 2% and 5%), which indicates that the task is appropriate for its purpose.…”

Forward masking and cognitive-language skills in children as a function of literacy stage

“…Hearing plays an essential role in language development, especially in the phonological acquisition of a language, and speech processing. From the auditoryperceptual perspective, one learns how to discriminate speech sounds and organize their patterns into appropriate categories 4 . The ability to identify phonological contrasts occurs throughout child's development until approximately seven years of age 4,5 .…”