Using ultrasound tongue imaging to identify covert contrasts in children’s speech

Ultrasound tongue imaging has become a promising technique for detecting covert contrasts, due to the developments in data analysis methods that allow for processing information on tongue shape from young children. An important feature concerning analyses of ultrasound data from children who are likely to produce covert contrasts is that the data are likely to be collected without head-to-transducer stabilisation, due to the speakers’ age. This article is a review of the existing methods applicable in analysing data from non-stabilised recordings. The article describes some of the challenges of ultrasound data collection from children, and analysing these data, as well as possible ways to address those challenges. Additionally, there are examples from typical and disordered productions featuring covert contrasts, with illustrations of quantifying differences in tongue shape between target speech sounds.