Speaking fundamental frequency of eight-year-old girls.

Several recent studies have suggested that average speaking fundamental frequency levels are lower now compared to speaking levels several decades ago. Indeed, the present investigators found that a group of 6‐yr‐old girls when identifying pictures of objects used fundamentals lower than those previously reported for teenage girls. To use a method that permitted comparison with similar studies of young girls, many of the above subjects were recorded two years later reading a standard passage. A graphic display was made of this recording and the fundamental frequency of each speaker was determined from wavelength measurements. The results showed a group mean fundamental frequency within l0 Hz of the group level reported previously for girls of the same age. The differences found by the present investigators for the two age groups appear to be related more to the speech sample than other developmental features of the subjects.