Integration of auditory-visual cues on speech perception in children with phonological disorders

Abstract

Speech perception is an auditory-visual event once it involves the integration of auditory and visual cues into a unitary phonological entity (Dodd et al, 2008). So, an inability to correctly produce sounds would interfere with the ability to lip-read, such the case of children with phonological disorder. The present study proposes to investigate how the integration of audiovisual cues occurs in children with phonological disorders and also to verify if the phonic class interferes with this integration. Twenty-five children with diagnosis of phonological disorder will be recruited from service at the Speech-Language Therapy Clinic of the UNESP (Marília). The auditory and visual stimuli will be consisted of simple syllables involving stops and fricatives unvoiced: /pa/, /ta/, /ka/, /fa/, /sa/ e /+a/. The experimental procedure of perception will consist of an identification test composed of three distinct stages: (1) presentation of stimuli by auditory pathway; (2) visual pathway; (3a) congruous and (3b) incongruous audiovisual integration information. It is assumed that phonic class (stops vs fricatives) would be a factor that would require a greater degree of integration of clues. It is expected that children with phonological disorder present difficulties to integrate auditory-visual cues in speech perception task, prioritizing just one of the information: auditory or visual cues. It is expected contributions to the discussion around uni vs multimodal speech perception theories. (AU)