Acoustic Variability in the Speech of Children with Cerebral Palsy

This study examines the acoustic variability in four 4-year-old children: two with cerebral palsy (CP) and two typically developing (TD). One recording from each child, collected from the picture-naming task and spontaneous interaction with adults was analyzed. Acoustic vowel space, pitch and speech rate in their production were investigated. Study findings indicated the following: 1) children with CP have a smaller vowel space than TD children, and there was a scattered distribution of the formant frequencies in CP; 2) children with CP tend to spend more time producing the utterances and their production of tones was unstable; and 3) both the speech rate and speech intelligibility in CP were lower. Future studies are needed to verify these preliminary findings. The variability features in the production of children with CP provide important references in speech therapy.