Speech Timing in Typically Developing Mandarin-Speaking Children From Ages 3 To 4

Abstract This study aims to develop a better understanding of the speech timing development in Mandarin-speaking children from 3 to 4 years of age. Data were selected from two typically developing children. Four 50-min recordings were collected during 3 and 4 years old based on natural conversation among the observers, participants, and the parents, and the picture-naming task. Speech timing were measured by Praat, including speaking rate, articulation rate, mean length of utterance (MLUs), mean utterance duration, mean word duration, pause ratio, and volubility. Major findings of the current study are: 1) Five measurements (speaking rate, mean length of utterance (MLUs), mean utterance length, mean word duration and volubility) decreased with age in both children; 2) Articulation rate of both children increased with age; 3) Comparing with the findings from previous studies, pause ratio of both slightly increased with age. These findings not only contribute to a more comprehensive data for assessment, it also can be a reference in speech intervention. Keywords: speaking rate, mean length of utterance (MLUs), mean utterance length, mean word duration, volubility 1 Introduction Speech timing, also known as speaking rates, is a product of several factors, including biological factors (e.g., anatomic growth, neurologic and neuromuscular maturation), sensorimotor and language processes (e.g., motor learning, and semantic, lexical, and phonologic access, and motor programming and planning) (Kent, 2004; Nip and Green, 2013; Redford, 2015). Speaking rates could be a crucial indicator of typical speech development and speech disorders, for example, stuttering, cluttering, specific language impairment, apraxias, and dysarthrias. (Hall et al., 1999; Smith et al., 2011; Flipsen, 2002). Speaking rate not only serves as a metric, it can also be a common target in speech intervention to improve speech production in individuals with speech motor involvement. 2 Purpose of Study and Research Questions Due to limited longitudinal studies and lack of data on Mandarin-speaking children, our knowledge of speech rate development in Mandarin-speakers remains inadequate. Hence, this study was to develop a better understanding of the speech rate development in Mandarin-speaking children from 3 to 4 years of age. Research questions include: 1) Are there any differences in speaking rate, articulation rate and pause ratio between 3 and 4 years old? 2) Are there any gender differences in speaking rate, articulation rate and pause ratio in Taiwanese Mandarin-speaking children? 3 Literature Review 3.1 Speech Rate Speech rate reflects a speaker’s global aspects of speech production (e.g. language formation, speed of articulator movement, cognitive, linguistic, and motor workloads). Speech rate is measured from the onset to the offset of the spoken words or sentences including articulation rate, pauses, disfluencies and repetitions. To be more specific, it is calculated by dividing the number of syllables produced by sentence duration, in the unit of words per minute (WPM) or word per second (WPS) and/or syllables per minute (syl/m) or syllables per second (syl/s). In Mandarin Chinese, each word contains only one syllable, which means the number of words is equivalent to the number of syllables, thus, words per minute (WPM) …

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