A pilot fieldwork ultrasound study of tongue shape variability in children with and without speech sound disorder

Children with Speech Sound Disorders (SSD) have been described as having increased tongue shape variability during speech. However, most studies do not compare this variability to typically developing children (TD) using ultrasound tongue imaging (UTI). Open access corpora suitable for answering this question are scarce. This pilot study addresses both the theoretical question of whether variability differs between TD children and children with SSDs; and the feasibility of a potential solution for acquiring ultrasound data quickly at a public science exhibition. We compare tongue shapes during multiple repetitions of various consonants in TD children across different ages, and children with SSD, using mean Nearest Neighbour Distance (NND). Results suggest no significant effect of age in the TD group. Children with SSD had significantly higher tongue shape variability than TD children. Field data collection was a viable method for collecting UTI data, despite some limitations.