While voicing contrasts in word-onset position are acquired relatively early, much less is known about how and when they are acquired in word-coda position, where accurate production of these contrasts is also critical for distinguishing words (e.g., dog vs. dock). This study examined how the acoustic cues to coda voicing contrasts are realized in…

Purpose: This study explored the intervention processes used by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to treat children with speech sound disorders (SSDs). Method: Semistructured, individual, in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 Australian SLPs. Inductive content analysis was used to classify the data to provide a description of current…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to better understand how and when onset /l/ ("leap") and coda /l/ ("peel") are acquired by children by examining both the articulations involved and adults' perceptions of the produced segments. Method: Twenty-five typically developing Australian English-speaking children aged 3;0…

This study investigated the effect of dialectal difference on identification and rating of severity of speech impairment in children from Indigenous Australian backgrounds. The speech of 15 Indigenous Australian children identified by their parents/caregivers and teachers as having "difficulty talking and making speech sounds" was…

Background: Electropalatographic investigations have revealed that a proportion of children with articulation/phonological disorders exhibit undifferentiated lingual gestures, whereby the whole of the tongue contacts the palate simultaneously during lingual consonant production. These undifferentiated lingual gestures have been interpreted to…

This paper reports on increases in the phonetic inventories of nine children in the fifth and sixth years of experience with cochlear implants. Thirty-six of 44 phones in Australian English reached criterion levels, resulting in intelligible, but not completely natural, speech. The rate of improvement in the sixth year was slow, indicating a…