Phonetic Imitation by Young Children and Its Developmental Changes

Purpose: In the current study, the author investigated the developmental course of phonetic imitation in childhood, and further evaluated existing accounts of phonetic imitation. Method: Sixteen preschoolers, 15 third graders, and 18 college students participated in the current study. An experiment with a modified imitation paradigm with a picture-naming task was conducted, in which participants' voice-onset time (VOT) was compared before and after they were exposed to target speech with artificially increased VOT. Results: Extended VOT in the target speech was imitated by preschoolers and 3rd graders as well as adults, confirming previous findings in phonetic imitation. Furthermore, an age effect of phonetic imitation was observed; namely, children showed greater imitation than adults, whereas the degree of imitation was comparable between preschoolers and 3rd graders. No significant effect of gender or word specificity was observed. Conclusions: Young children imitated fine phonetic details of the target speech, and greater degree of phonetic imitation was observed in children compared to adults. These findings suggest that the degree of phonetic imitation negatively correlates with phonological development.