Developmental changes of fundamental frequency and temporal characteristics in Estonian adolescent speech

Poster from 20th International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences; Prague, Czech Republic, August 7-11, 2023

Age- and gender-related anatomic changes of the vocal apparatus during childhood and adolescence have a direct impact on speech acoustics, manifested in a sudden drop of fundamental frequency (F0) during puberty in boys and in a gradual decrease of the acoustic vowel space and formant frequencies in both genders. In parallel with anatomical changes, the development of speech-motor control as well as cognitive and linguistic processing takes place, which manifests itself in the increase of speech and articulation rates.