Conference Contribution Details
Mandatory Fields
Gibbon, F., Lee, A., Yuen, I., & Crampin, L.
The Colloquium of the BAAP
Articulation of clicks in children with velocardiofacial syndrome
Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Poster Presentation
2006
()
0
Optional Fields
10-APR-06
12-APR-06
We report electropalatographic (EPG) data on a rare type of compensatory articulation, namely clicks, in the speech of a girl (S) and a boy (E) with velocardiofacial syndrome. Clicks are complex speech sounds that under normal circumstances only occur in the languages of Southern Africa. Results showed that S produced alveolar clicks [!] fluently for all /d/, /k/ and /g/ targets; whereas E produced alveolar clicks [!] for the alveolar stops and affricates, and palatal click [ǂ] for the velar stops. Timing and tongue -palate contact patterns from the EPG data revealed that the production of clicks always involved a sequence of two closures, one in the alveolar and the other in the velar region. The first phase of the click sequence involved alveolar closure. The second involved simultaneous alveolar and velar closures. The release of the alveolar closure resulted in an audible click sound. The final phase involved velar closure only. The timing and contact details of clicks varied between speakers and across target sounds, which showed that different strategies were used to indicate the phonemic difference between the targets. The clicks showed by S and E were possibly learned misarticulations that they used to produce plosives with strong bursts in the context of ongoing velopharyngeal inadequacy.
*