Voice onset time patterns in 7-, 9- and 11-year old children

Voice onset time (VOT) is a key temporal feature in spoken language. There is some evidence to suggest that there are sex differences in VOT patterns. The cause of these sex differences could be attributed to sexual dimorphism of the vocal apparatus. There is also some evidence to suggest that phonetic sex differences could also be attributed to learned stylistic and linguistic factors. This study reports on an investigation into the VOT patterns for /p b t d/ in a group of thirty children aged 7 (n=10), 9 (n=10) and 11 (n=10) years, with equal numbers of girls (n=5) and boys (n=5) in each age group. Age and sex differences were examined for in the VOT data. Age, sex and age-by-sex interactions were found. The results are presented and discussed.