Evaluation of the effects of presentation rate and speaking rate on children's auditory perception of two levels of linguistic material.
Twenty-four first- and second-order sentential approximations of four words each were presented auditorily to two groups of eight normal children. Eight first- and eight second-order approximations were spoken at three rates: 90 (slow); 140 (normal); and 175 (fast) words/min. The 48 approximations were randomized and rates altered as necessary so that one group heard the material at a slow rate (90 words/min) of presentation and the other group at a normal rate (140 words/min) of presentation. The results indicated that although presentation rate did not significantly effect auditory perception, speaking rate did. It was concluded that a slow speaking rate can be expected to enhance the perception of low-level linguistic material regardless of the presentation rate, whereas a normal speaking rate would be best for higher level linguistic material.
D001307:Auditory Perception; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D013060:Speech; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States