Voicing in Czech children's sibilants: children's production and adults' perception

This study examines how Czech-speaking children mark voicing in sibilants and how adult listeners perceive these contrasts in children’s speech. Productions of /s, z, ʃ, ʒ/ by 31 children aged 3;5–6;5 show that voicing is cued by both duration and presence of f0: voiceless sibilants are longer and contain less voicing than voiced sibilants. Development is non-linear, with substantial variability, particularly for voiced targets. Consistency improves most clearly by age 6. Phonetic context affects both duration and presence of f0, indicating that productions depend on the elicitation material. Perception experiment involving 48 adults showed that speech-language therapists do not outperform non-professionals in sibilant detection. Listeners rely on both f0 and duration and identify voiceless targets more reliably than voiced targets. Findings support controlling phonetic context and supplementing perceptual judgments with acoustic measures.