Tongue-palate contact of perceptually acceptable alveolar stops

Increased tongue-palate contact for perceptually acceptable alveolar stops has been observed in children with speech sound disorders (SSD). This is a retrospective study that further investigated this issue by using quantitative measures to compare the target alveolar stops/t/,/d/and/n/produced in words by nine children with SSD (20 tokens of/t/, 13/d/and 11/n/) to those produced by eight typical children (32/t/, 24/d/and 16/n/). The results showed that children with SSD had significantly higher percent contact than the typical children for target/t/; the difference for/d/and/n/was not significant. Children with SSD generally showed more contact in the posterior central area of the palate than the typical children. The results suggested that broader tongue-palate contact is a general articulatory feature for children with SSD and its differential effect on error perception might be related to the different articulatory requirements.