Speech tempo in Hungarian speaking children and adolescents: The effects of age and speaking tasks

Abstract

This paper provides new data on speech tempo in typically developing Hungarian-speaking children and adolescents obtained in three different speaking contexts and analyzed using an extended set of temporal measures. We asked whether the expected developmental trend across four age levels (6, 9, 13, and 17 years) was equally reflected in children's speech rate, articulation rate, and pausing (frequency, duration, and proportion of pauses), and how their speech tempo was modulated by the cognitive demands of different speaking tasks (spontaneous narratives, story retellings, and story generations). We found a systematic incremental increase in speech rate and articulation rate with each higher age level, but the corresponding decrease in the frequency, duration, and proportion of pauses was less systematic. Increased cognitive demands in the story generation and retelling tasks resulted in slower speech and articulation rates than in spontaneous narratives. The demands of different tasks were also reflected in a distinct pattern of pausing. Overall, the study suggests a protracted developmental time course of temporal control in narrative discourse production and underscores the importance of considering speaking contexts when comparing findings across experimental studies.