Acoustic Tracking of Articulation Errors

[r]

¹ University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

The objective of this study was to determine the usefulness of acoustic tracking as a supplement to perceptual judgments during remediation. One child, receiving weekly individual treatment, participated in a drill-and-practice approach to remediation for a single [w]-for-/r/substitution error. Imitations of consonant-vowel (CV), VCV, and matched/r/and/w/sentence stimuli were audiotape recorded. The temporal and spectral characteristics of the recorded stimuli (i.e., the F2 transition rates and F2 values for the changing [r]) were spectrographically tracked and analyzed over a 70-day remediative period. The acoustic data were compared with the perceptual judgments of articulatory change. Generally, as the child's productions moved from the [w] toward the [r], the measured F2 values became higher and the F2 transition rates lowered. Results suggest that acoustic tracking of a child's productions may become a useful tool to augment perceptual tracking. Implications are discussed for the applications of acoustic tracking within clinical practice.

Key Words: acoustic • spectrographie • [r] or semivowel • misarticulation • child

Submitted on June 6, 1988
Accepted on November 2, 1988