Acoustic characterisation of vowel production by young adults with Down syndrome

Down Syndrome (DS) is a frequent genetic disorder that has systematic consequences on speech articulation. The acoustic properties of speech production of people with DS have been poorly investigated in speech research. This paper reports on an acoustic analysis of vowels produced by eight native speakers of French with DS in VowelConsonant-Vowel (VCV) contexts. We observed more variability in duration, pitch and formants in vowels produced by people with DS compared with “ordinary” speakers. F0 was always higher for people with DS who also tended to display a larger vocalic space in VCV production than ordinary people. We interpret these results regarding motor control issues reported in previous studies involving people with DS.