title: Children's Use of Semantic Context in Perception of Foreign-Accented Speech.
abstract: The purpose of this study is to evaluate children's use of semantic context to facilitate foreign-accented word recognition in noise.
  
  
  
  Monolingual American English speaking 5- to 7-year-olds (n = 168) repeated either Mandarin- or American English-accented sentences in babble, half of which contained final words that were highly predictable from context. The same final words were presented in the low- and high-predictability sentences.
  
  
  
  Word recognition scores were better in the high- than low-predictability contexts. Scores improved with age and were higher for the native than the Mandarin accent. The oldest children saw the greatest benefit from context; however, context benefit was similar regardless of speaker accent.
  
  
  
  Despite significant acoustic-phonetic deviations from native norms, young children capitalize on contextual cues when presented with foreign-accented speech. Implications for spoken word recognition in children with speech, language, and hearing differences are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus.
authors.forename: Rachael Frush
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Holt
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington.
authors.forename: Tessa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bent
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception