Who speaks “kid?” How experience with children does (and does not) shape the intelligibility of child speech.

Yu, Madeleine; Cooper, Angela; Johnson, Elizabeth

doi:10.1037/xhp0001088

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 59 publications

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“…Preschool-aged children are learning to produce speech and song in ways that mirror adults' utterances. Speech intelligibility increases from 50% for 2.5-year-olds to 75% for 5.5-year-olds (Yu et al, 2021). Children's singing improves during the elementary school years, as children develop pitch matching and invent their own songs (Tsang et al, 2011;Elmer, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Developmental changes in the categorization of speech and song

Nederlanden

Xin

Sequeira

et al. 2022

Developmental Science

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Music and language are two fundamental forms of human communication. Many studies examine the development of music‐ and language‐specific knowledge, but few studies compare how listeners know they are listening to music or language. Although we readily differentiate these domains, how we distinguish music and language—and especially speech and song— is not obvious. In two studies, we asked how listeners categorize speech and song. Study 1 used online survey data to illustrate that 4‐ to 17‐year‐olds and adults have verbalizable distinctions for speech and song. At all ages, listeners described speech and song differences based on acoustic features, but compared with older children, 4‐ to 7‐year‐olds more often used volume to describe differences, suggesting that they are still learning to identify the features most useful for differentiating speech from song. Study 2 used a perceptual categorization task to demonstrate that 4–8‐year‐olds and adults readily categorize speech and song, but this ability improves with age especially for identifying song. Despite generally rating song as more speech‐like, 4‐ and 6‐year‐olds rated ambiguous speech–song stimuli as more song‐like than 8‐year‐olds and adults. Four acoustic features predicted song ratings: F0 instability, utterance duration, harmonicity, and spectral flux. However, 4‐ and 6‐year‐olds’ song ratings were better predicted by F0 instability than by harmonicity and utterance duration. These studies characterize how children develop conceptual and perceptual understandings of speech and song and suggest that children under age 8 are still learning what features are important for categorizing utterances as speech or song.Research Highlights Children and adults conceptually and perceptually categorize speech and song from age 4. Listeners use F0 instability, harmonicity, spectral flux, and utterance duration to determine whether vocal stimuli sound like song. Acoustic cue weighting changes with age, becoming adult‐like at age 8 for perceptual categorization and at age 12 for conceptual differentiation. Young children are still learning to categorize speech and song, which leaves open the possibility that music‐ and language‐specific skills are not so domain‐specific.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Developmental changes in the categorization of speech and song

Nederlanden

Xin

Sequeira

et al. 2022

Developmental Science

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Perceptual Learning of Dysarthria in Adolescence

Borrie,

Hepworth,

Wynn

et al. 2023

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose: As evidenced by perceptual learning studies involving adult listeners and speakers with dysarthria, adaptation to dysarthric speech is driven by signal predictability (speaker property) and a flexible speech perception system (listener property). Here, we extend adaptation investigations to adolescent populations and examine whether adult and adolescent listeners can learn to better understand an adolescent speaker with dysarthria. Method: Classified by developmental stage, adult ( n = 42) and adolescent ( n = 40) listeners completed a three-phase perceptual learning protocol (pretest, familiarization, and posttest). During pretest and posttest, all listeners transcribed speech produced by a 13-year-old adolescent with spastic dysarthria associated with cerebral palsy. During familiarization, half of the adult and adolescent listeners engaged in structured familiarization (audio and lexical feedback) with the speech of the adolescent speaker with dysarthria; and the other half, with the speech of a neurotypical adolescent speaker (control). Results: Intelligibility scores increased from pretest to posttest for all listeners. However, listeners who received dysarthria familiarization achieved greater intelligibility improvements than those who received control familiarization. Furthermore, there was a significant effect of developmental stage, where the adults achieved greater intelligibility improvements relative to the adolescents. Conclusions: This study provides the first tranche of evidence that adolescent dysarthric speech is learnable—a finding that holds even for adolescent listeners whose speech perception systems are not yet fully developed. Given the formative role that social interactions play during adolescence, these findings of improved intelligibility afford important clinical implications.

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