PURPOSE: to describe the acoustic characteristics obtained from the acoustic analysis (AA) and the stimulability index (SI) of the liquids [[l/]; [[r/]; [[lh/]. METHODS: we analyzed the speech production elicited by imitation from two twin adolescents aged 11:6 years-old, showing the phonological process of liquid simplification. Their productions were acoustically analyzed before the stimulability test application. RESULTS: the two subjects correctly produced the sound [[l/]. Subject 1 was not stimulable to the sound [[r/] and his production was substituted by [[l/] independently of the subsequent vowel. Subject 2 was stimulable to the sound [[l/] and produced it correctly only in one of the imitations task when combined with the vowel /a/. The AA showed that the sound [[l/] was produced in different ways when production was either correct or substituted by [[r/]. Both subjects were stimulable to [[lh/]. AA showed statistical differences when the [[lh/] was followed by the vowels /a/ and /u/. The vowel /i/ was the only sound that did not facilitate the production of [[lh/] for the subject 2. CONCLUSION: the combined use of both procedures was effective in identifying motor and acoustical speech problems and helped to find out some parameters that tend to facilitate the acquisition of a sound.
Language Disorders; Child Development; Child Language; Speech-Language Pathology
