The role of experience in the perception of phonetic detail in children's speech: a comparison between speech-language pathologists and clinically untrained listeners.
OBJECTIVE
This study examined whether experienced speech-language pathologists (SLPs) differ from inexperienced people in their perception of phonetic detail in children's speech.


METHODS
Twenty-one experienced SLPs and 21 inexperienced listeners participated in a series of tasks in which they used a visual-analog scale (VAS) to rate children's natural productions of target /s/-/θ/, /t/-/k/, and /d/-// in word-initial position. Listeners rated the perceived distance between individual productions and ideal productions.


RESULTS
The experienced listeners' ratings differed from the inexperienced listeners' ratings in four ways: They had higher intrarater reliability, showed less bias toward a more frequent sound, and were more closely related to the acoustic characteristics of the children's speech. In addition, the experienced listeners' responses were related to a different set of predictor variables.


CONCLUSIONS
Results suggest that experience working as an SLP leads to better perception of phonetic detail in children's speech. Limitations and future research are discussed.
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA. Munso005@umn.edu
Benjamin
B
Munson
Julie M
JM
Johnson
Jan
J
Edwards
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002983:Clinical Competence; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D010700:Phonetics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013066:Speech-Language Pathology / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult