Speech Development
Research in this laboratory, under the direction of Dr. Susan Nittrouer, is concerned with the development of phonological abilities in normal children and with what goes wrong in this process for children at risk for language problems.
The primary interest is how normal children learn to extract phonemic structure from a complex acoustic signal that lacks explicit invariant information about those phonemes. Another area of interest is how the development of phonemic knowledge is affected by conditions that put children at-risk for language problems. This work is significant because learning to recognize phonemic structure in the acoustic speech signal is a necessary condition for many other kinds of language skills, such as reading.
Because children with even mild hearing losses or children growing up in poverty seem to have some language delay, it may be that a child's ability to discover the phonemic structure of language is dependent on language experience. A long-term goal for this laboratory is to investigate what goes wrong in the development of phonemic knowledge in children who encounter difficulty learning language.
Selected Publications
Nittrouer, S. & Lowenstein, J.H. (2010). Learning to perceptually organize speech signals in native fashion. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 127, 1624-1635. pdf
Nittrouer, S., Lowenstein, J.H., and Packer, R.R. (2009). Children discover the spectral skeletons in their native language before the amplitude envelopes. J. Exper. Psychol.: Human Percep. and Perf., 35, 1245-1253. pdf
Nittrouer, S. and Lowenstein, J.H. (2009). Does harmonicity explain children’s cue weighting of fricative-vowel syllables? J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 125, 1679-1692. pdf
McGowan, R. S., Nittrouer, S., and Chenausky, K. (2008). Speech production of twelve-monthold children with and without hearing loss. J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. 51, 879-888. pdf
Lowenstein, J.H., and Nittrouer, S. (2008). Patterns of acquisition of native voice onset time in English-learning children. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 124, 1180-1191. pdf
Nittrouer, S., and Lowenstein, J.H. (2008). Spectral structure across the syllable specifies final-stop voicing for adults and children alike. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 123, 377-385. pdf
Nittrouer, S., and Lowenstein, J.H. (2007). Children’s weighting strategies for word-final stop voicing are not explained by auditory capacities. J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res, 50, 58-73. pdf
Nittrouer, S. (2006) Children hear the forest. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 120, 1799-1802. pdf
Nittrouer, S. (2005). Age-related differences in weighting and masking of two cues to word-final stop voicing in noise. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 118, 1072-1088. pdf
Nittrouer, S. & Burton, L. (2005). The role of early language experience in the development of speech perception and phonological processing abilities: Evidence from 5-year-olds with histories of otitis media with effusion and low socioeconomic status. J. Comm. Dis., 38, 29-63. pdf
Nittrouer, S., Estee, S., Lowenstein, J.H., & Smith, J. (2005). The emergence of mature gestural patterns in the production of voiceless and voiced word-final stops. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 117, 351-364. pdf
Nittrouer, S. (2004). The role of temporal and dynamic signal components in the perception of syllable-final stop voicing by children and adults. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 115, 1777-1790.
McGowan, R.S., Nittrouer, S., & Manning, C. (2004). Development of [¨] in young, Midwestern, American children. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 115, 871-884.
Nittrouer, S. & Burton, L. (2002) The role of early language experience in the development of speech perception and language processing abilities in children with hearing loss. Volta Review 103, 5-37. pdf
Nittrouer, S. (2002). From ear to cortex: A perspective on what clinicians need to understand about speech perception and language processing. Lang., Speech, and Hear. Services in Schools 33, 237-251.
Nittrouer, S. (2002). Learning to perceive speech: How fricative perception changes, and how it stays the same. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 711-719.
Nittrouer, S, & Crowther, C.S. (2001). Coherence in children’s speech perception. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 2129-2140.
Nittrouer, S. (2001) Challenging the notion of innate phonetic boundaries. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 1581-1597.
Nittrouer, S., Miller, M.E., Crowther, C.S. & Manhart, M.J. (2000). The effect of segmental order on fricative labeling by children and adults. Percept. Psychophys. 62, 266-284.
Nittrouer, S. & Miller, M.E. (1999). The development of phonemic coding strategies for serial recall. Appl. Psycholing. 20, 563-588.
Nittrouer, S. (1999). Do temporal processing deficits cause phonological processing problems? J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. 42, 925-942.