EPG IN THE DESCRIPTION OF NORMAL AND DISORDERED SPEECH PRODUCTION ELECTROPALATOGRAPHIC AND PERCEPTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE SPEECH OF CANTONESE CHILDREN WITH CLEFT-PALATE .2.

This study used electropalatographic and perceptual analysis to invest igate the speech of two Cantonese children with repaired cleft palate. Some features of their speech, as identified from the perceptual anal ysis, have been previously reported as being typical of children with cleft palate. For example, fricatives and affricates were vulnerable t o disruption, and obstruent sounds were judged by listeners to have po sterior placement. However, some apparently language-specific characte ristics were identified in the Cantonese-speaking children. First ther e was a relatively high incidence of initial consonant deletion, and f or one subject /s/ and /f/ targets were produced as bilabial fricative s. EPG error patterns for target lingual obstruents were largely simil ar to those reported to occur in English- and Japanese-speaking childr en. In particular, broader and more posterior tongue-palate contact wa s observed, and intrasubject variability was noted. There was also evi dence of simultaneous labial/velar and alveolar/velar constriction for labial and velar targets respectively. The clinical implications of t he findings are discussed.