The contribution of phonological, acoustic, and perceptual techniques to the characterization of a misarticulating child's voice contrast for stops

ABSTRACT This paper examines the voicing contrast for word-initial obstruents in a child whose functional misarticulation initially was characterized by a severe lack of contrasts normally used in the English language. Specifically, auditory analysis indicated that the child represented a large number of both voiced and voiceless obstruents with [d]. Acoustic analysis demonstrated, however, that the child was producing an obstruent voicing distinction, albeit one that was not generally perceptible to listeners. Following a therapy program, the child produced an acceptable voicing distinction, at least for stops. The importance of these findings is that 1) they seem to indicate that the child is attaining articulation skills in a delayed, and not deviant fashion, and 2) they illustrate the utility of acoustic analyses in refining phonological descriptions.