Perception and Production of Misarticulated /r/

Abstract

Twelve children who consistently misarticulated consonant [r] and five children who correctly articulated [r] were recorded while repeating sentences which differed only in a single /r/–/w/ contrast. All /r/ and /w/ productions were spectrographically analyzed. Error productions were judged for their similarity to [w]. Each child identified all of the recorded sentences via a picture-pointing task. Misarticulated [r] was identified as /w/ at above chance levels only by the children who did not misarticulated [r]. The subject groups did not differ in their perception of correctly articulated /r/ and /w/ phones. Children whose misarticulated [r] phones were judged to be /w/?like were most likely to misperceive their own productions of /r/. Children whose misarticulated [r] productions were characterized by higher second formant frequencies were better able to identify their productions of /r/. Results suggest that a subpopulation of children who misarticulate [r] may mark it acoustically in a nonstandard manner.