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Updated: May 13, 2026

Ultrasound Images of the Tongue: A Tutorial for Assessment and Remediation of Speech Sound Errors
Published on: January 3, 2017
Tongue-palate contact of perceptually acceptable alveolar stops
Alice Lee1, Fiona E Gibbon, Cliona O'Donovan
1Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, School of Clinical Therapies, College of Medicine and Health, University College Cork, Brookfield Health Sciences Complex, College Road, Cork, Republic of Ireland. a.lee@ucc.ie
Abstract:
Increased tongue-palate contact for perceptually acceptable alveolar stops has been observed in children with speech sound disorders (SSD). This is a retrospective study that further investigated this issue by using quantitative measures to compare the target alveolar stops /t/, /d/ and /n/ produced in words by nine children with SSD (20 tokens of /t/, 13 /d/ and 11 /n/) to those produced by eight typical children (32 /t/, 24 /d/ and 16 /n/). The results showed that children with SSD had significantly higher percent contact than the typical children for target /t/; the difference for /d/ and /n/ was not significant. Children with SSD generally showed more contact in the posterior central area of the palate than the typical children. The results suggested that broader tongue-palate contact is a general articulatory feature for children with SSD and its differential effect on error perception might be related to the different articulatory requirements.
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