Vowel duration discrimination of children with CAS (Ingram et al., 2019)

Purpose: The ability of 5- and 6-year-old male children (23 participants) between the chronological ages of 5;0 and 6;11(years;months) with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS; n = 9) and with typical development (TD; n = 14) to detect differences in vowel duration of syllable pairs is explored. We asked whether the children with CAS show different patterns of performance on the vowel duration difference experimental task than those of their similarly aged peers with TD.Method: A male adult audio-recorded the syllable /bɑ/. The /ɑ/ was digitally lengthened and shortened, while maintaining uniform fundamental frequency and amplitude of the vowel and duration of the consonant /b/ at 42 ms. Vowel lengths increased in 40-ms increments, ranging from 208 to 488 ms. Eight pairs of syllables, 1 with equal length and 7 with differing vowel lengths, were randomly presented to the children 10 times in blocks of 16 pairs via a computer application.Results: Numerous complementary analyses indicated patterns of performance differed for children with CAS compared to the children with TD. The children with CAS were notably less accurate in their duration discrimination and evidenced greater variability in their performances across duration difference conditions than their peers with TD, signifying they were generally challenged to discriminate the vowel duration differences.Conclusion: These results suggest that CAS, which is more generally considered a motor speech disorder, may have a perceptual component of CAS related to vowel duration discrimination. Further research directions and clinical implications are discussed.Supplemental Material S1. Individual child performances on the comprehensive assessment battery for children with typical development (TD) and childhood apraxia of speech (CAS).Ingram, S. B., Reed, V. A., & Powell, T. W. (2019). Vowel duration discrimination of children with childhood apraxia of speech: A preliminary study. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 28, 857–874.Publisher Note: This article is part of the Special Issue: Selected Papers From the 2018 Conference on Motor Speech—Clinical Science and Innovations.

目的：本研究旨在探讨5至6岁（23名参与者）的男性儿童，在5岁0个月至6岁11个月（年/月）的年龄范围内，患有儿童构音障碍（CAS；n = 9）和典型发展（TD；n = 14）的儿童在检测音节对中元音时长差异方面的能力。研究旨在探究患有CAS的儿童在元音时长差异实验任务上的表现模式是否与其同龄且具有典型发展的同伴存在差异。方法：一名成年男性录音了音节/bɑ/。/ɑ/的时长被数字化地延长和缩短，同时保持元音的基频和振幅均匀，以及辅音/b/的时长为42毫秒。元音时长以40毫秒的增量增加，范围从208毫秒至488毫秒。随机向儿童呈现了8对音节，其中1对长度相等，7对元音长度不同，每对音节在16对音节的一组中呈现10次，通过计算机应用程序进行。结果：多项互补分析表明，与典型发展的儿童相比，患有CAS的儿童在表现模式上存在差异。患有CAS的儿童在时长辨别上明显准确性较低，且在时长差异条件下的表现变化较大，这表明他们在辨别元音时长差异方面普遍面临挑战。结论：这些结果表明，通常被视为运动性言语障碍的CAS可能具有与元音时长辨别相关的感知成分。进一步的研究方向和临床意义被讨论。补充材料S1：典型发展（TD）和儿童构音障碍（CAS）儿童的全面评估电池中个别儿童的表现。Ingram, S. B., Reed, V. A., & Powell, T. W. (2019). 儿童构音障碍儿童元音时长辨别：一项初步研究。美国言语-语言病理学杂志，28，857–874。出版者注：本文是特刊《2018年运动性言语会议——临床科学和创新》的精选论文。