Feature-cue-based processing of speech: A developmental perspective

Over the past decades a number of research findings have illustrated the extraordinary robustness and flexibility of human speech perception, which combines sensitivity to surprisingly detailed aspects of systematic context-governed variability in word forms with an ability to extract information about the speaker's intended words from minimal information in a sometimes highly reduced signal. Stevens' [19] proposed model of human speech perception, based on the extraction of individual cues to distinctive features, provides an account of this robust perceptual processing in adults, and is also consistent with two recent findings about speech production during development in children learning American English: the occurrence of non-adult-like cues to the voicing contrast in coda stops, and the occurrence of adult-like cues in stop-like productions of voiced dental fricatives.