Effects of English /r/-/l/ perceptual training on Japanese children's production

It has been proven that high-variability English /r/-/l/ perceptual training improves Japanese adults’ production. The present study examined whether Japanese children also improve their production for the English /r/-/l/ contrast after perceptual training. The results demonstrated that production was significantly improved, but the improvement did not relate to an improvement in the primary acoustic cue use for the contrast (e.g., lowering F3 for English /r/ and raising F3 for English /l/). This suggests that children may respond to phonetic training differently from adults, and improve their production mostly through the modification of secondary acoustic cues.