ONTOGENY OF SEGMENTAL SPEECH ORGANIZATION

这个项目的长期目标是提高我们对如何 孩子们了解音节(即音素)的组织方式 语言，并开始调查这个发展中出了什么问题 有明显延误的儿童处理程序。研究与正常 发育中的儿童正在集中于这样一种观念，即这些年幼的受试者 对分段语音的表达不是那么扎实或准确 像成年人那样的结构，这表明学习说话的一个方面是 在语音信号中发现该结构。其中一个模型说明了这一点 发展任务的完成就是将权重分配给各个 语音信号的声学特性随子增益而返回 使用他们的母语的经验。这是“发展权重” 这种模型被称为移位，最终会导致语音处理 优化声学属性权重的策略 强烈传达有关儿童母语语音对比的信息 语言。该项目的四个具体目标检验了由此得出的假设 从这个理论上来说。与正常受试者的实验将 调查不同年龄段听众的加权方案 具有不同音节结构和音位组成的刺激，以及 评估发展权重转移的两个可能原因： 心理声学能力的发展变化与发展 声学特性集成方式的变化。知觉 涉及标签和/或辨别任务的实验将被用于 实现这些目标。比较正常儿童和儿童数据的实验 来自那些没有意识到语音的儿童，与正常儿童相比 同龄人将探索他们的困难是否与 发育权重转移的延迟。三种实验 将用来实现这一目标：一种语音的声学分析 样本，三个语音感知测试，和五个相关的心理声学 测试。结果应该对有语言能力的儿童产生影响 障碍，包括诵读困难。这项工作应该会带来更好的结果 对正常儿童如何获得节段性敏感的理解 讲话结构，提高我们对面临的问题的认识 有困难的儿童，并为 用几种语言类型探索儿童面临的问题 减损。

The long-term goal of this project is to improve our understanding of how children learn about the segmental (i.e., phonemic) organization of language, and to begin investigating what goes wrong in this developmental process for children with apparent delays. Studies with normally developing children are converging on the notion that these young subjects do not have as solid or as precise representations of segmental speech structure as adults do, suggesting that one aspect of learning to talk is discovering this structure in the speech signal. One model of how this developmental task is accomplished is that the weights assigned to various acoustic properties of the speech signal are returned as children gain experience with their native language. This 'developmental weighting shift,' as the model is termed, eventually leads to speech processing strategies that optimize the weightings of acoustic properties that most strongly convey information about phonetic contrasts in the child's native language. The four specific aims of this project test hypotheses derived from this theoretical account. Experiments with normal subjects will investigate the weighting schemes of listeners of different ages for stimuli with different syllable structures and phonemic compositions, and evaluate two possible causes of the developmental weighting shift: developmental changes in psychoacoustic capacities and developmental changes in the way acoustic properties are integrated. Perception experiments involving labeling and/or discrimination tasks will be used to accomplish these aims. Experiments comparing data from normal children and from children who are phonologically unaware, compared to their normal peers, will explore the possibility that their difficulty is related to a delay in the developmental weighting shift. Three kinds of experiments will be used to accomplish this aim: one acoustic analysis of speech samples, three speech perception tests, and five related psychoacoustic tests. Results should have implications for children with language impairments, including dyslexia. This work should lead to a better understanding of how normal children acquire sensitivity to the segmental structure of speech, improve our understanding of the problem faced by children having difficulty doing so, and provide a starting point for exploring the problems faced by children with several types of language impairments.