The development of articulatory awareness and the relationship between perception and production of the articulatory gesture.

PURPOSE To investigate the articulatory awareness of children with normal phonological development according to the variables gender, age and schooling, as well as to analyze their performances in speech perception and production tasks. METHODS Participants were 90 Preschool and Elementary School students, with ages between 5 and 7 years, who were evaluated using the Articulatory Awareness Investigation Instrument (AAII). The test is subdivided into three articulatory gesture perception tasks (T1, T3 and T4) and two articulatory gesture production tasks (T2 and T5). RESULTS Girls showed better performances in T1, T2, T3, total score, and articulatory awareness perception tasks. Seven-year-old subjects presented better performances in T1, T4, T5, total score, articulatory awareness perception and production tasks, when compared to 5-year-olds. Seven-year-old children presented better performances than 6-year-olds in T4. Six-year-old subjects showed better performances than 5-year-olds in T5, total score, and articulatory awareness production tasks. Elementary school students presented better performances than Preschool children in T1, T3, T4, T5, total score, and articulatory awareness perception and production tasks. There was correlation between articulatory awareness perception and production tasks, evidencing that the better the performance on perception tasks, the better the performance on the production tasks. CONCLUSION Articulatory awareness improves with age and schooling. Female subjects show better performances than male subjects. The better the performance on articulatory awareness perception tasks, the better the performance on articulatory awareness production tasks.