Discrimination of consonants in quiet and in noise in Mandarin-speaking children with normal hearing.

Objective: Given the critical role of consonants in speech perception and the lack of knowledge on consonant perception in noise in Mandarin-speaking children, the current study aimed to investigate Mandarin consonant discrimination in normal-hearing children, in relation to the effects of age and signal-to-noise ratios (S/N).

Design: A discrimination task consisting of 33 minimal pairs in monosyllabic words was designed to explore the development of consonant discrimination in five test conditions: 0, -5, -10, -15 dB S/Ns, and quiet.

Study Sample: Forty Mandarin-speaking, normal-hearing children aged from 4;0 to 8;9 in one-year-age increment were recruited and their performance was compared to 10 adult listeners.

Results: A significant main effect of age, test conditions, and an interaction effect between these variables was noted. Consonant discrimination in quiet and in noise improved as children became older. Consonants that were difficult to discriminate in quiet and in noise were mainly velar contrasts. Noise seemed to have less effect on the discrimination of affricates and fricatives, and plosives appeared to be to be more difficult to discriminate in noise than in quiet. Place contrasts between alveolar and palato-alveolar consonants were difficult in quiet.

Conclusions: The findings were the first to reveal typical perceptual development of Mandarin consonant discrimination in children and can serve as a reference for comparison with children with disordered perceptual development, such as those with hearing loss.