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Speech Perception And Lexical Effects In Specific Language Impairment: The Effects Of Vowel Duration And Word Knowledge On Perception Of Final Alveolar Stop Voicing, Frances L.V. Scheffler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The perception of temporal speech cues, lexical knowledge, and their interactions were examined in children (6;0-9;6) with specific language impairment (SLI). An identification task was used to test four 12-step speech continua: word-word (FEET—FEED), nonword-nonword (ZEST—ZEED), word-nonword (CHEAT—CHEED) and nonword-word (REAT—READ). The stimuli were naturally recorded and digitally edited. The vowel steady state, which varied in duration from 110 to 350 milliseconds in 20-millisecond steps, was the acoustic cue to the voicing characteristic of the final consonant in each stimulus. The analyses revealed that both the TLD and SLI groups used vowel duration as a perceptual cue. For the word-word …