Formant frequency development: 15 to 36 months.

Developmental characteristics of formant 1 (F1) and formant 2 (F2) are reported for spontaneous vocalizations produced by four young children. Each child was systematically sampled at between 15 and 36 months of age. Results indicated that both F1 and F2 remained relatively unchanged prior to 24 months of age. Significant decreases in average F1 and F2 occurred between 24 and 36 months. When F1 and F2 values were categorized according to tongue elevation and tongue advancement, the most significant changes were associated with high/back articulations. The pattern of formant frequencies noted in the present group of children appears to reflect developmental changes in vocal tract growth and reconfiguration.

[1]  C. Sapienza,et al.  Respiratory and laryngeal measures of children during vocal intensity variation. , 1993, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[2]  M. Robb,et al.  Developmental trends in vocal fundamental frequency of young children. , 1985, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[3]  Ronald J. Baken,et al.  Clinical measurement of speech and voice , 1987 .

[4]  Gunnar Fant,et al.  Acoustic Theory Of Speech Production , 1960 .

[5]  M. Robb,et al.  Durations of young children's word and nonword vocalizations. , 1995, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[6]  H R Bauer.  Vowel intrinsic pitch in infants. , 1988, Folia phoniatrica.

[7]  M Robb,et al.  Vocal fundamental frequency characteristics of infant hunger cries: birth to 12 months. , 1996, International journal of pediatric otorhinolaryngology.

[8]  M. Robb,et al.  Syllable durations of preword and early word vocalizations. , 1990, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[9]  R. B. Monsen,et al.  The accuracy of formant frequency measurements: a comparison of spectrographic analysis and linear prediction. , 1983, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[10]  A T Cacace,et al.  Estimation of formant frequencies in infant cry. , 1995, International journal of pediatric otorhinolaryngology.

[11]  Raymond D. Kent,et al.  Vocalizations of one-year-olds , 1985, Journal of Child Language.

[12]  R H Colton,et al.  The cry characteristics of an infant who died of the sudden infant death syndrome. , 1981, The Journal of speech and hearing disorders.

[13]  R. Buhr,et al.  The emergence of vowels in an infant. , 1980, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[14]  E. Crelin.  The human vocal tract: Anatomy, function, development, and evolution , 1987 .

[15]  C. Stoel-Gammon,et al.  Vowel systems of normally developing and phonologically disordered children. , 1990, Clinical linguistics & phonetics.

[16]  D K Oller,et al.  Effect of final-syllable position on vowel duration in infant babbling. , 1977, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[17]  Lawrence E. Kinsler,et al.  Fundamentals of acoustics , 1950 .

[18]  Raymond D. Kent,et al.  Anatomical and neuromuscular maturation of the speech mechanism: evidence from acoustic studies. , 1976, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[19]  M P Robb,et al.  Vocal fundamental frequency characteristics during the first two years of life. , 1989, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[20]  J. Martin.  Voice, Speech, and Language in the Child: Development and Disorder , 1981 .

[21]  Raymond D. Kent,et al.  Acoustic features of infant vocalic utterances at 3, 6, and 9 months. , 1982, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[22]  A N Popper,et al.  Cepstral and stationarity analyses of full-term and premature infants' cries. , 1974, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[23]  C. Stoel-Gammon,et al.  The acquisition of unrounded vowels in English. , 1992, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[24]  I. Hirsh,et al.  Development of speech sounds in children. , 1969, Acta oto-laryngologica. Supplementum.

[25]  V. Negus.  The Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Larynx , 1950 .

[26]  E. Crelin,et al.  Postnatal descent of the epiglottis in man. A preliminary report. , 1977, Archives of otolaryngology.

[27]  Estimation of Formant Frequency in Synthetic Infant CV Tokens , 1991 .

[28]  Jon F. Miller.  Research on child language disorders : a decade of progress , 1991 .