The acquisition of voicing contrast in normal and at-risk children

This paper reports an acoustical investigation of the development of the voicing contrast in Italian word initial stops produced by three groups of infants: premature, low-birth and controls. The purposes of the study were to compare the patterns of acquisition of thc acoustic-phonetic cues for voicing in the speech of at-risk infants and controls and to discuss the inter-group differencies in relation to phonological proficiency.