Multimodal perception of voiceless fricatives in children with and without phonological disorder

Abstract

The objective of this study is to compare the integration of auditory and visual cues in the multimodal perception task of voiceless fricatives in children with and without PD. Assuming that phonological disorder could influence the way in which children perform the integration of auditory-visual cues, it is hypothesized that (a) children with PD have worse performance in the integration of auditory and visual cues in relation to children without PD, since the PD could be associated with an impaired capacity to integrate phonological information from two mode sources. Thirty children will be tested, being 15 diagnosed with phonological disorder with involvement of the fricatives (G1) and 15 with typical speech development (G2). Using the OpenSesame software, the presented stimuli will consist of audio and video recordings of the production of syllables with simple syllabic pattern so that the onset is filled by the fricatives: /f/, /s/ and /ƒ/ in context of the vowel /a/. The multimodal perception task will involve the stimuli presentation only by auditory pathway; (2) the stimuli presentation only by visual pathway; and (3a) simultaneous presentation of the auditory and visual stimuli congruently; (3b) simultaneous presentation of the auditory and visual stimuli incongruously. In order to analyze the data, it will be considered (1) accuracy (% of correct answers) and response time only in the auditory identification task; (2) accuracy and response time only in the visual identification task; and (3a) accuracy in identification task in audiovisual integration for congruent and incongruent stimuli. An inferential statistical analysis will be done to verify if there is difference between the groups and the conditions of stimuli presentation. It is believed that the proposal could contribute to scientific gains, such as: (1) to provide original information on the integration of cues in the perception of contrasts between voiceless fricatives in BP; (2) to verify how children with phonological disorder perceive information from integrated audiovisual stimuli; and (3) to serve as support to the speech-language setting, in the analysis of the multimodal perception performance of individuals with speech-language disorders. (AU)