@phdthesis{Rubertus2024,
  author    = {Rubertus, Elina},
  title     = {Coarticulatory changes across childhood},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-63012},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-630123},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {X, 131},
  year      = {2024},
  abstract  = {The present dissertation investigates changes in lingual coarticulation across childhood in German-speaking children from three to nine years of age and adults. Coarticulation refers to the mismatch between the abstract phonological units and their seemingly commingled realization in continuous speech. Being a process at the intersection of phonology and phonetics, addressing its changes across childhood allows for insights in speech motor as well as phonological developments. Because specific predictions for changes in coarticulation across childhood can be derived from existing speech production models, investigating children's coarticulatory patterns can help us model human speech production. While coarticulatory changes may shed light on some of the central questions of speech production development, previous studies on the topic were sparse and presented a puzzling picture of conflicting findings. One of the reasons for this lack is the difficulty in articulatory data acquisition in a young population. Within the research program this dissertation is embedded in, we accepted this challenge and successfully set up the hitherto largest corpus of articulatory data from children using ultrasound tongue imaging. In contrast to earlier studies, a high number of participants in tight age cohorts across a wide age range and a thoroughly controlled set of pseudowords allowed for statistically powerful investigations of a process known as variable and complicated to track. The specific focus of my studies is on lingual vocalic coarticulation as measured in the horizontal position of the highest point of the tongue dorsum. Based on three studies on a) anticipatory coarticulation towards the left, b) carryover coarticulation towards the right side of the utterance, and c) anticipatory coarticulatory extent in repeated versus read aloud speech, I deduct the following main theses: 1. Maturing speech motor control is responsible for some developmental changes in coarticulation. 2. Coarticulation can be modeled as the coproduction of articulatory gestures. 3. The developmental change in coarticulation results from a decrease of vocalic activation width.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{NoirayAbakarovaRubertusetal.2018,
  author    = {Noiray, Aude and Abakarova, Dzhuma and Rubertus, Elina and Kr{\"u}ger, Stella and Tiede, Mark},
  title     = {How do children organize their speech in the first years of life?},
  series = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research},
  volume    = {61},
  journal   = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research},
  number    = {6},
  publisher = {American Speech-Language-Hearing Assoc.},
  address   = {Rockville},
  issn      = {1092-4388},
  doi       = {10.1044/2018_JSLHR-S-17-0148},
  pages     = {1355 -- 1368},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Purpose: This study reports on a cross-sectional investigation of lingual coarticulation in 57 typically developing German children (4 cohorts from 3.5 to 7 years of age) as compared with 12 adults. It examines whether the organization of lingual gestures for intrasyllabic coarticulation differs as a function of age and consonantal context. Method: Using the technique of ultrasound imaging, we recorded movement of the tongue articulator during the production of pseudowords, including various vocalic and consonantal contexts. Results: Results from linear mixed-effects models show greater lingual coarticulation in all groups of children as compared with adults with a significant decrease from the kindergarten years (at ages 3, 4, and 5 years) to the end of the 1st year into primary school (at age 7 years). Additional differences in coarticulation degree were found across and within age groups as a function of the onset consonant identity (/b/, / d/, and /g/). Conclusions: Results support the view that, although coarticulation degree decreases with age, children do not organize consecutive articulatory gestures with a uniform organizational scheme (e.g., segmental or syllabic). Instead, results suggest that coarticulatory organization is sensitive to the underlying articulatory properties of the segments combined.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{RubertusNoiray2018,
  author    = {Rubertus, Elina and Noiray, Aude},
  title     = {On the development of gestural organization},
  series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  journal   = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  number    = {478},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-419753},
  pages     = {21},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {In the first years of life, children differ greatly from adults in the temporal organization of their speech gestures in fluent language production. However, dissent remains as to the maturational direction of such organization. The present study sheds new light on this process by tracking the development of anticipatory vowel-to-vowel coarticulation in a cross-sectional investigation of 62 German children (from 3.5 to 7 years of age) and 13 adults. It focuses on gestures of the tongue, a complex organ whose spatiotemporal control is indispensable for speech production. The goal of the study was threefold: 1) investigate whether children as well as adults initiate the articulation for a target vowel in advance of its acoustic onset, 2) test if the identity of the intervocalic consonant matters and finally, 3) describe age-related developments of these lingual coarticulatory patterns. To achieve this goal, ultrasound tongue imaging was used to record lingual movements and quantify changes in coarticulation degree as a function of consonantal context and age. Results from linear mixed effects models indicate that like adults, children initiate vowels' lingual gestures well ahead of their acoustic onset. Second, while the identity of the intervocalic consonant affects the degree of vocalic anticipation in adults, it does not in children at any age. Finally, the degree of vowelto-vowel coarticulation is significantly higher in all cohorts of children than in adults. However, among children, a developmental decrease of vocalic coarticulation is only found for sequences including the alveolar stop /d/ which requires finer spatiotemporal coordination of the tongue's subparts compared to labial and velar stops. Altogether, results suggest greater gestural overlap in child than in adult speech and support the view of a non-uniform and protracted maturation of lingual coarticulation calling for thorough considerations of the articulatory intricacies from which subtle developmental differences may originate.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{RubertusNoiray2018,
  author    = {Rubertus, Elina and Noiray, Aude},
  title     = {On the development of gestural organization},
  series = {PLoS ONE},
  volume    = {13},
  journal   = {PLoS ONE},
  number    = {9},
  publisher = {Public Library of Science},
  address   = {San Francisco},
  issn      = {1932-6203},
  doi       = {10.1371/journal.pone.0203562},
  pages     = {1 -- 21},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {In the first years of life, children differ greatly from adults in the temporal organization of their speech gestures in fluent language production. However, dissent remains as to the maturational direction of such organization. The present study sheds new light on this process by tracking the development of anticipatory vowel-to-vowel coarticulation in a cross-sectional investigation of 62 German children (from 3.5 to 7 years of age) and 13 adults. It focuses on gestures of the tongue, a complex organ whose spatiotemporal control is indispensable for speech production. The goal of the study was threefold: 1) investigate whether children as well as adults initiate the articulation for a target vowel in advance of its acoustic onset, 2) test if the identity of the intervocalic consonant matters and finally, 3) describe age-related developments of these lingual coarticulatory patterns. To achieve this goal, ultrasound tongue imaging was used to record lingual movements and quantify changes in coarticulation degree as a function of consonantal context and age. Results from linear mixed effects models indicate that like adults, children initiate vowels' lingual gestures well ahead of their acoustic onset. Second, while the identity of the intervocalic consonant affects the degree of vocalic anticipation in adults, it does not in children at any age. Finally, the degree of vowelto-vowel coarticulation is significantly higher in all cohorts of children than in adults. However, among children, a developmental decrease of vocalic coarticulation is only found for sequences including the alveolar stop /d/ which requires finer spatiotemporal coordination of the tongue's subparts compared to labial and velar stops. Altogether, results suggest greater gestural overlap in child than in adult speech and support the view of a non-uniform and protracted maturation of lingual coarticulation calling for thorough considerations of the articulatory intricacies from which subtle developmental differences may originate.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{NoirayPopescuKillmeretal.2019,
  author    = {Noiray, Aude and Popescu, Anisia and Killmer, Helene and Rubertus, Elina and Kr{\"u}ger, Stella and Hintermeier, Lisa},
  title     = {Spoken Language Development and the Challenge of Skill Integration},
  series = {Frontiers in Psychology},
  volume    = {10},
  journal   = {Frontiers in Psychology},
  publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
  address   = {Lausanne},
  issn      = {1664-1078},
  doi       = {10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02777},
  pages     = {17},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {The development of phonological awareness, the knowledge of the structural combinatoriality of a language, has been widely investigated in relation to reading (dis)ability across languages. However, the extent to which knowledge of phonemic units may interact with spoken language organization in (transparent) alphabetical languages has hardly been investigated. The present study examined whether phonemic awareness correlates with coarticulation degree, commonly used as a metric for estimating the size of children's production units. A speech production task was designed to test for developmental differences in intra-syllabic coarticulation degree in 41 German children from 4 to 7 years of age. The technique of ultrasound imaging allowed for comparing the articulatory foundations of children's coarticulatory patterns. Four behavioral tasks assessing various levels of phonological awareness from large to small units and expressive vocabulary were also administered. Generalized additive modeling revealed strong interactions between children's vocabulary and phonological awareness with coarticulatory patterns. Greater knowledge of sub-lexical units was associated with lower intra-syllabic coarticulation degree and greater differentiation of articulatory gestures for individual segments. This interaction was mostly nonlinear: an increase in children's phonological proficiency was not systematically associated with an equivalent change in coarticulation degree. Similar findings were drawn between vocabulary and coarticulatory patterns. Overall, results suggest that the process of developing spoken language fluency involves dynamical interactions between cognitive and speech motor domains. Arguments for an integrated-interactive approach to skill development are discussed.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{RubertusNoiray2020,
  author    = {Rubertus, Elina and Noiray, Aude},
  title     = {Vocalic activation width decreases across childhood},
  series = {Laboratory Phonology},
  volume    = {11},
  journal   = {Laboratory Phonology},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {de Gruyter Mouton},
  address   = {Berlin, New York},
  issn      = {1868-6346},
  doi       = {10.5334/labphon.228},
  pages     = {27},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {This study is the first to use kinematic data to assess lingual carryover coarticulation in children. We investigated whether the developmental decrease previously attested in anticipatory coarticulation, as well as the relation between coarticulatory degree and the consonantal context, also characterize carryover coarticulation. Sixty-two children and 13 adults, all native speakers of German, were recruited according to five age cohorts: three-year-olds, four-year-olds, five-year-olds, seven-year-olds, and adults. Tongue movements during the production of ə.CV.Cə utterances (C = /b, d, g/, V = /i, y, e, a, o, u/) were recorded with ultrasound. We measured vowel-induced horizontal displacement of the tongue dorsum within the last syllable and compared the resulting coarticulatory patterns between age cohorts and consonantal contexts. Results indicate that the degree of vocalic carryover coarticulation decreases with age. Vocalic prominence within an utterance as well as its change across childhood depended on the postvocalic consonant's articulatory demands for the tongue dorsum (i.e., its coarticulatory resistance): Low resistant /b/ and /g/ allowed for more vocalic perseveration and a continuous decrease, while the highly resistant /d/ displayed lower coarticulation degrees and discontinuous effects. These findings parallel those in anticipation suggesting a similar organization of anticipatory and carryover coarticulation. Implications for theories of speech production are discussed.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{NoirayRiesTiedeetal.2020,
  author    = {Noiray, Aude and Ries, Jan and Tiede, Mark and Rubertus, Elina and Laporte, Catherine and M{\´e}nard, Lucie},
  title     = {Recording and analyzing kinematic data in children and adults with SOLLAR},
  series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  journal   = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  number    = {667},
  issn      = {1866-8364},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-48315},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-483159},
  pages     = {27},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {Understanding the development of spoken language in young children has become increasingly important for advancing basic theories of language acquisition and for clinical practice. However, such a goal requires refined measurements of speech articulation (e.g., from the tongue), which are difficult to obtain from young children. In recent years though, technological advances have allowed developmental researchers to make significant steps in that direction. For instance, movements of the tongue, an articulator that is essential for spoken language, can now be tracked and recorded in children with ultrasound imaging. This technique has opened novel research avenues in (a)typical language acquisition, enabling researchers to reliably capture what has long remained invisible in the speech of young children. Within this context, we have designed an experimental platform for the recording and the processing of kinematic data: SOLLAR (Sonographic and Optical Linguo-Labial Articulatory Recording system). The method has been tailored for children, but it is suitable for adults. In the present article, we introduce the recording environment developed to record over 100 children and 30 adults within SOLLAR. We then describe SOLLAR's data processing framework, providing examples of data visualization and a summary of strengths and limitations.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{RubertusNoiray2020,
  author    = {Rubertus, Elina and Noiray, Aude},
  title     = {Vocalic activation width decreases across childhood},
  series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  journal   = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  number    = {645},
  issn      = {1866-8364},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-47353},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-473536},
  pages     = {29},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {This study is the first to use kinematic data to assess lingual carryover coarticulation in children. We investigated whether the developmental decrease previously attested in anticipatory coarticulation, as well as the relation between coarticulatory degree and the consonantal context, also characterize carryover coarticulation. Sixty-two children and 13 adults, all native speakers of German, were recruited according to five age cohorts: three-year-olds, four-year-olds, five-year-olds, seven-year-olds, and adults. Tongue movements during the production of ə.CV.Cə utterances (C = /b, d, g/, V = /i, y, e, a, o, u/) were recorded with ultrasound. We measured vowel-induced horizontal displacement of the tongue dorsum within the last syllable and compared the resulting coarticulatory patterns between age cohorts and consonantal contexts. Results indicate that the degree of vocalic carryover coarticulation decreases with age. Vocalic prominence within an utterance as well as its change across childhood depended on the postvocalic consonant's articulatory demands for the tongue dorsum (i.e., its coarticulatory resistance): Low resistant /b/ and /g/ allowed for more vocalic perseveration and a continuous decrease, while the highly resistant /d/ displayed lower coarticulation degrees and discontinuous effects. These findings parallel those in anticipation suggesting a similar organization of anticipatory and carryover coarticulation. Implications for theories of speech production are discussed.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{NoirayWielingAbakarovaetal.2019,
  author    = {Noiray, Aude and Wieling, Martijn and Abakarova, Dzhuma and Rubertus, Elina and Tiede, Mark},
  title     = {Back from the future},
  series = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research},
  volume    = {62},
  journal   = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research},
  number    = {8},
  publisher = {American Speech-Language-Hearing Association},
  address   = {Rockville},
  issn      = {1092-4388},
  doi       = {10.1044/2019_JSLHR-S-CSMC7-18-0208},
  pages     = {3033 -- 3054},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Purpose: This study examines the temporal organization of vocalic anticipation in German children from 3 to 7 years of age and adults. The main objective was to test for nonlinear processes in vocalic anticipation, which may result from the interaction between lingual gestural goals for individual vowels and those for their neighbors over time. Method: The technique of ultrasound imaging was employed to record tongue movement at 5 time points throughout short utterances of the form V1\#CV2. Vocalic anticipation was examined with generalized additive modeling, an analytical approach allowing for the estimation of both linear and nonlinear influences on anticipatory processes. Conclusions: A developmental transition towards more segmentally-specified coarticulatory organizations seems to occur from kindergarten to primary school to adulthood. In adults, nonlinear anticipatory patterns over time suggest a strong differentiation between the gestural goals for consecutive segments. In children, this differentiation is not yet mature: Vowels show greater prominence over time and seem activated more in phase with those of previous segments relative to adults.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{NoirayRiesTiedeetal.2020,
  author    = {Noiray, Aude and Ries, Jan and Tiede, Mark and Rubertus, Elina and Laporte, Catherine and M{\´e}nard, Lucie},
  title     = {Recording and analyzing kinematic data in children and adults with SOLLAR},
  series = {Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology},
  volume    = {11},
  journal   = {Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Ubiquity Press},
  address   = {London},
  issn      = {1868-6354},
  doi       = {10.5334/labphon.241},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {Understanding the development of spoken language in young children has become increasingly important for advancing basic theories of language acquisition and for clinical practice. However, such a goal requires refined measurements of speech articulation (e.g., from the tongue), which are difficult to obtain from young children. In recent years though, technological advances have allowed developmental researchers to make significant steps in that direction. For instance, movements of the tongue, an articulator that is essential for spoken language, can now be tracked and recorded in children with ultrasound imaging. This technique has opened novel research avenues in (a)typical language acquisition, enabling researchers to reliably capture what has long remained invisible in the speech of young children. Within this context, we have designed an experimental platform for the recording and the processing of kinematic data: SOLLAR (Sonographic and Optical Linguo-Labial Articulatory Recording system). The method has been tailored for children, but it is suitable for adults. In the present article, we introduce the recording environment developed to record over 100 children and 30 adults within SOLLAR. We then describe SOLLAR's data processing framework, providing examples of data visualization and a summary of strengths and limitations.},
  language  = {en}
}