Delayed auditory feedback with children.
There is a controversy in the literature concerning the effects of delayed auditory feedback (DAF) on the speech of subjects of varying ages. In the current experiment the subjects were five-year-olds, eight-year-olds, and adult speakers who performed a sentence repetition task under: 0-delay, 250, 375, 500, and 625 msec of amplified delayed auditory feedback. All subjects performed the task under normal rate instructions and under instructions to speak as rapidly as possible. A developmental pattern emerged, with the youngest children significantly more affected by the DAF than the older children or the adults. There was only weak evidence for a critical delay interval that varied according to age of the subjects. Rate instructions had essentially no effect on the DAF or age patterns.
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001307:Auditory Perception; D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013060:Speech; D013061:Speech Acoustics