Children’s Perceptual Auditory Performance in Identifying Phonemic Contrasts

■ ABSTRACT: This study aimed at investigating children’s perceptual auditory performance in identifying phonemic contrast in Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP). The hypothesis is that the perceptual auditory acquisition develops in a gradual fashion, following a systematic acquisition order. We performed four identification tasks using the instrument PerceFAL with 66 children (of both genders) between 4-5 years old. The task relied on the presentation of an acoustic stimulus, through earphones, and the choice of an image corresponding to the word shown, having two image possibilities available on the computer screen. We compared both the stimulus length of time and reaction time of children automatically through the aid of the software PERCEVAL. The children’s perceptual auditory performance occurred gradually and depended on the phonemic class. A greater accuracy regarding the phonemic contrast identification seems to follow the sequence: vowels, sonorants, stops e fricatives. The reaction time for the correct answers was shorter than that of the incorrect answers (except for the vowel class). From the perceptual maps, we verified that, within the vowel class, the anterior-posterior parameter plays an important role in perceptual salience. For the obstruents and sonorants (nasal and liquid), the acoustic cues that characterize voicing (in the case of obstruents) and the articulation mode (in the case of sonorants) are perceptually more robust than the cues from the point of articulation. Although speech perception should not be reduced to a mere sensory interpretation, the acoustic cues of speech segments exert influence on their categorization.