Decelerated Synthesized Speech as a Means of Shaping Speed of Auditory Processing of Children with Delayed Language

Abstract

This study investigated whether the rate at which children with delayed language process auditory stimuli can be increased through a process of shaping with synthesized speech stimuli. Results indicate that stimuli with slowed down critical formant cues were easier for these 24 children with delayed language to discriminate and that training with stimuli of extended duration did generalize to stimuli of normal durations. Implications of these findings and usefulness of this methodology are discussed.