Speech intelligibility and the production of fricative and affricate among Mandarin-speaking children with cerebral palsy

Literatures pertaining to English and Mandarin fricative/affricate productions by adults with cerebral palsy (CP) showed that acoustic measurements such as rise time contrast, initial burst rate contrast and friction noise duration contrast associated with fricative/affricate productions were highly correlated with overall speech intelligibility. However, the phonetic features of fricatives/affricates produced by Mandarin-learning children with CP were not fully explored. Therefore, this study targets on fricatives/affricates produced by ten Mandarin-learning CP children (Mean: 6;10, Range: 4;6 - 8;11) and ten Mandarin-learning typically developing children (Mean: 5;7, Range: 5;2 - 6;1). The current results from a speech repetition task showed that: 1) The fricative/affricate accurate rates and error patterns were similar between the two groups; 2) The differences between the two groups in terms of nine acoustic measurements (fricative/affricate rise time, initial burst rate, friction noise duration and their contrasts) and speech intelligibility were not statistically significant; 3) The rise time contrast was an effective contributor to overall speech intelligibility for CP children. Together with previous studies, the current study concluded that rise time contrast was the most significant contributor, among fricative/affricate measurements, to speech intelligibility across different age ranges.