Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Acquisition of the sound /s/ is widely variable in normal development, but misarticulations that persist longer than approximately age 10 are considered to represent residual speech sound errors (RSSEs). Recent studies suggest that RSSEs may reflect subtle underlying difficulties in developing phonological representations, which, in turn, correlate with reading and spelling skills. Thus, RSSEs, even if restricted to a few sounds, may have larger clinical relevance. The acoustic characteristics of /s/ have been investigated in normally developing adolescents, but less work exists on the acoustics of misarticulated /s/, particularly considering across phonetic contexts. The current work is an exploratory study of /s/ acoustics in adolescents who do and do not misarticulate /s/. Speech samples include word lists as well as connected speech. Syllable-initial /s/ is analyzed across words varying in the following context. Of particular interest is the extent of /s/ variability as a function of the upcoming vowels and consonants (i.e., the degree of anticipatory coarticulation), and how this changes over the duration of the fricative. Instrumental data of this sort may ultimately provide greater insight into the phonological systems of adolescents with RSSEs as compared to their normally speaking peers. [Work supported by NIH.]</jats:p>