Interobserver Agreement of Perceived Intelligibility of |r̄| in Children

Abstract

This study was designed to test whether independent listeners could correctly classify 162 stimuli (words) that started with a multiple trill, |r̄|, followed by a vowel |a|. The sounds were from 27 Spanish children between the ages of 3.0 and 6.6 years, pronouncing Spanish words current in their vocabulary. Twelve listeners were presented with the recordings of the children's |r̄| production and were instructed to rate the intelligibility of the pronounced sound as high, medium, or low. Inter-rater agreement ranged from 85 to 96%. Analyses of variance for each of the three production categories showed that there were significant differences, so it seems possible to classify the words starting with a trilled |r̄| based on auditory-perceptual features into three broad categories according to intelligibility.