Differences in fricative production between children and adults: evidence from an acoustic analysis of /sh/ and /s/

Speech samples of 12 speakers (8 children and 4 adults) producing the fricatives /s/ and/sh/ followed by the vowels /i/ and /u/ were analyzed to locate the major spectral prominences. Results showed that the fricative low-frequency prominences for children's samples differed from those of adults in three important ways: (1) They were generally higher in frequency; (2) they were greater in amplitude relative to higher frequency regions; and (3) they showed greater effects of vowel context. The first finding can be explained by a simple scaling of adult models of fricative production to accommodate children's smaller vocal tracts. The other two findings suggest, however, that there are other anatomical and articulatory differences between children and adults affecting fricative production. The data presented here suggest that one important difference may be the relative sizes of the fricative constriction and the glottal opening.