Children's Attention and Articulation

Eighty four-year-olds were given an articulation assessment, a phonetic learning task, and a test of acoustic vigilance in order to study attention as a factor in children's natural and experimental acquisition of articulatory behaviour. The measure of attention was the number of supra-threshold signals detected; phonetic learning was based on subjects' approximations to a Swedish disyllable. Attenders and non-attenders differed in sound learning but not significantly so. Children with high articulation scores were significantly more attentive to acoustic stimuli and were significantly better in phonetic learning than children with low scores on the articulation test. These findings are discussed primarily in terms of their implications for the conduct and interpretation of research rather than immediate clinical value.