Articulatory Movement Characteristics of Labial Consonant Productions by Children and Adults

One purpose of the present investigation was to attempt to better understand articulatory movement characteristics of children's speech, particularly as they might relate to the question of why acoustic measures of children's segment durations are often longer than those of adults. In order to address this issue and to consider other general characteristics of children's speech production development, a variety of data was obtained from three groups of children and from a group of adults using strain gauge instrumentation to monitor superior-inferior lip and jaw displacement and peak velocity. Results indicate that the children's peak velocity and articulatory displacement measures were in many respects quite similar to those of the adults, although certain differences were observed. For a number of measures, there were also few peak velocity or displacement differences observed among the three age groups of children, despite the fact that they spanned about a six-year age range. In general, it appears that even when children and adults produce consonant sounds that are perceptually "correct," articulatory differences can be observed among their productions.