TY - JOUR A1 - Noiray, Aude A1 - Abakarova, Dzhuma A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Krüger, Stella A1 - Tiede, Mark T1 - How do children organize their speech in the first years of life? BT - insight from ultrasound imaging JF - Journal of speech, language, and hearing research N2 - 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. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_JSLHR-S-17-0148 SN - 1092-4388 SN - 1558-9102 VL - 61 IS - 6 SP - 1355 EP - 1368 PB - American Speech-Language-Hearing Assoc. CY - Rockville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Noiray, Aude A1 - Popescu, Anisia A1 - Killmer, Helene A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Krüger, Stella A1 - Hintermeier, Lisa T1 - Spoken Language Development and the Challenge of Skill Integration JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - 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. KW - language acquisition KW - coarticulation KW - speech motor control KW - phonological awareness KW - vocabulary KW - speech production Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02777 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 10 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - GEN A1 - Noiray, Aude A1 - Ries, Jan A1 - Tiede, Mark A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Laporte, Catherine A1 - Ménard, Lucie T1 - Recording and analyzing kinematic data in children and adults with SOLLAR BT - Sonographic & Optical Linguo-Labial Articulation Recording system T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - 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. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 667 KW - ultrasound imaging KW - speech kinematics KW - methodology KW - language acquisition Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-483159 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 667 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Noiray, Aude A1 - Ries, Jan A1 - Tiede, Mark A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Laporte, Catherine A1 - Ménard, Lucie T1 - Recording and analyzing kinematic data in children and adults with SOLLAR BT - Sonographic & Optical Linguo-Labial Articulation Recording system JF - Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology N2 - 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. KW - ultrasound imaging KW - speech kinematics KW - methodology KW - language acquisition Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.241 SN - 1868-6354 VL - 11 IS - 1 PB - Ubiquity Press CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Noiray, Aude A1 - Wieling, Martijn A1 - Abakarova, Dzhuma A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Tiede, Mark T1 - Back from the future T1 - Nonlinear anticipation in adults' and children's speech JF - Journal of speech, language, and hearing research N2 - 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. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_JSLHR-S-CSMC7-18-0208 SN - 1092-4388 SN - 1558-9102 VL - 62 IS - 8 SP - 3033 EP - 3054 PB - American Speech-Language-Hearing Association CY - Rockville ER - TY - THES A1 - Rubertus, Elina T1 - Coarticulatory changes across childhood T1 - Koartikulatorische Veränderungen in der Kindheit BT - implications for speech motor and phonological development BT - Implikationen für die sprechmotorische und phonologische Entwicklung N2 - 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. N2 - Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht Veränderungen der lingualen Koartikulation in der Kindheit bei deutschsprachigen Kindern im Alter von drei bis neun Jahren und Erwachsenen. Koartikulation bezieht sich auf die Diskrepanz zwischen abstrakten phonologischen Einheiten auf der einen und ihrer scheinbar vermischten kontinuierlichen Realisierung auf der anderen Seite. Da es sich um einen Prozess an der Schnittstelle zwischen Phonologie und Phonetik handelt, ermöglicht die Untersuchung koartikulatorischer Veränderungen im Laufe der Kindheit Einblicke sowohl in sprechmotorische als auch in phonologische Entwicklungen. Da sich aus bestehenden Sprachproduktionsmodellen spezifische Vorhersagen für Veränderungen der Koartikulation im Kindesalter ableiten lassen, kann die Untersuchung der kindlichen Koartikulation bei der Modellierung der menschlichen Sprachproduktion helfen. Obwohl koartikulatorische Veränderungen Licht auf einige der zentralen Fragen der Sprachentwicklung werfen können, waren frühere Studien zu diesem Thema spärlich und boten ein rätselhaftes Bild widersprüchlicher Ergebnisse. Einer der Gründe für diesen Mangel ist die Schwierigkeit der artikulatorischen Datenerfassung in einer jungen Population. Im Rahmen des Forschungsprogramms, in das diese Dissertation eingebettet ist, haben wir die Herausforderung angenommen und mit Hilfe von Ultraschallaufnahmen der Zungenbewegung beim Sprechen erfolgreich den bisher größten Korpus artikulatorischer Daten von Kindern erstellt. Im Gegensatz zu früheren Studien ermöglichte eine hohe Anzahl von Teilnehmenden in engen Alterskohorten über einen weiten Altersbereich und ein sorgfältig kontrollierter Satz von Pseudowörtern statistisch aussagekräftige Untersuchungen eines Prozesses, der als variabel und kompliziert zu erfassen gilt. Der besondere Schwerpunkt meiner Studien liegt auf der lingualen vokalischen Koartikulation, gemessen an der horizontalen Position des höchsten Punktes des Zungenrückens. Ausgehend von drei Studien zur a) antizipatorischen Koartikulation nach links, b) perseveratorischen Koartikulation nach rechts und c) antizipatorischen Koartikulation bei wiederholter gegenüber laut vorgelesener Sprache leite ich die folgenden Hauptthesen ab: 1. Die heranreifende Sprachmotorik ist für einige entwicklungsbedingte Veränderungen der Koartikulation verantwortlich. 2. Koartikulation kann als Koproduktion von artikulatorischen Gesten modelliert werden. 3. Die entwicklungsbedingte Veränderung der Koartikulation resultiert aus einer Abnahme der vokalischen Aktivierungsbreite. KW - language acquisition KW - coarticulation KW - ultrasound tongue imaging KW - phonology KW - phonetics KW - Spracherwerb KW - Koartikulation KW - Ultraschall KW - Phonologie KW - Phonetik Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-630123 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Noiray, Aude T1 - On the development of gestural organization BT - A cross-sectional study of vowel-to-vowel anticipatory coarticulation T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - 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. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 478 KW - Catalan VCV Sequences KW - Speech Motor Control KW - Vocal-Tract KW - Acoustic Analysis KW - Locus Equations KW - Lingual Coarticulation KW - Children KW - Ultrasound KW - English KW - Resistance Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-419753 IS - 478 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Noiray, Aude T1 - On the development of gestural organization BT - A cross-sectional study of vowel-to-vowel anticipatory coarticulation JF - PLoS ONE N2 - 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. KW - Catalan VCV Sequences KW - Speech Motor Control KW - Vocal-Tract KW - Acoustic Analysis KW - Locus Equations KW - Lingual Coarticulation KW - Children KW - Ultrasound KW - English KW - Resistance Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0203562 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 13 IS - 9 SP - 1 EP - 21 PB - Public Library of Science CY - San Francisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Noiray, Aude T1 - Vocalic activation width decreases across childhood BT - Evidence from carryover coarticulation JF - Laboratory Phonology N2 - 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. KW - language acquisition KW - coarticulation KW - carryover effects KW - vowels KW - gestural organization KW - speech motor control Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.228 SN - 1868-6346 SN - 1868-6354 VL - 11 IS - 1 PB - de Gruyter Mouton CY - Berlin, New York ER - TY - GEN A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Noiray, Aude T1 - Vocalic activation width decreases across childhood BT - Evidence from carryover coarticulation T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - 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. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 645 KW - language acquisition KW - coarticulation KW - carryover effects KW - vowels KW - gestural organization KW - speech motor control Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-473536 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 645 ER -