Gradient change in lingual gestures in children with motor speech delay

This study is an ultrasound investigation of the acquisition of velars in children with persistent velar fronting. We selected six children aged 6-15 unable to produce an accurate velar consonant from a larger project looking at a wide variety of speech disorders. For each child a probe wordlist was recorded, along with minimal pair words. We report the magnitude of the dorsal velar gesture in each session using linear and area-based differential measures between /t/ and /k/ tongue surface splines, which is compared to child and adult norms. Four of the children achieved a perceptually correct dorsal articulation in the 1st or 2nd session and two children achieved it in the 7th session. Articulatory analysis of the ultrasound shows a range of strategies for achieving the new movement including initial undershoot or overshoot