Relationship Between Pacifier Use and Fricative Production at 18 months Kristen Maehl, Nancy Creaghe

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Relationship Between Pacifier Use and Fricative
Production at 18 months Kristen Maehl, Nancy
Creaghead, Carney SottoUniversity of Cincinnati
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• METHODS
• Subjects
• Thirty eight (38) typically developing
  children, between the ages of 9 months and 2
  years participated in the study.
• Procedures
• Parents were interviewed to ask if the child used
  a pacifier. If the child had used a pacifier,
  the parent was asked if they were still using the
  pacifier, and how long each day the child used
  it. If the child had used a pacifier, but was
  not currently using it, the parent was asked when
  the child began using the pacifier, how
  frequently the pacifier was used, and when the
  child stopped using the pacifier.
• Each childs spontaneous speech was audio taped
  at home for 45 minutes during interactive play
  with one or both parents and the researcher in
  order to obtain evidence of whether the child
  produced fricatives. A reporting form for
  fricative production was used to document the
  fricative productions in isolation, in babble, in
  a word in one context, and in words in two or
  more contexts. Parent report was used as an
  adjunct to the investigation of fricative use,
  but observation was a requirement.
• The data was analyzed to determine whether there
  was a relationship between fricative use by 18
  month old children who used pacifiers and those
  who did not and whether there was a relationship
  between fricative production and the length of
  time a pacifier was used.

• RESULTS
• There was not an overall significant relationship
  between pacifier use and the production of at
  least one fricative before 18 months.
• There was, however, a significant relationship
  between the age at which the child began using a
  pacifier and fricative production prior to 18
  months. Children who did not begin using a
  pacifier until at least two weeks after birth
  were found to have fricative production by
  eighteen months, while those who used a pacifier
  as newborns did not.
• There was a significant relationship between
  the extent of pacifier use and fricative
  production. Children who used a pacifier less
  than 120 minutes per day were more likely to have
  fricatives at 18 months whereas those who used
  pacifiers more than 120 minutes per day were
  found to be less likely to use fricatives by
  eighteen months.
• There was not a significant relationship between
  fricative production at 18 months and the age at
  which the child ceased using the pacifier.

RESULTS

• BACKGROUND.
• Babbling allows children to explore with their
  tongue, and learn to produce the sounds used for
  speech (Oller, Wieman, Doyle, Ross, 1976). The
  jaw is stronger than upper and lower lip muscles
  and the tongue may stay in one position during
  early babbling (Davis MacNeilage, 1995, Green
  Moore, 2002). However, these muscles become more
  stable and integrated with age (Green Moore,
  2002). This control over the articulators allows
  the child to produce sounds that require lip and
  tongue control, such as fricatives.
• Factors in early childhood that prevent
  exploration using muscles have the potential to
  affect the development of muscles and motor
  control that children use to create sounds
  (Green, Moore Reilly, 2002). Green, et al.
  (2000), noted that behaviors such as sucking and
  swallowing facilitate speech motor development
  however, if there are negative effects on motor
  development from outside sources, childrens
  expansion to mature speech may require them to
  overcome patterns already ingrained. These
  negative effects on motor development can also
  have an effect on the development of phonemes
  demanding effort of graded muscle force, such as
  fricatives. Pacifiers may be a contributing
  factor to shaping the childs oral movement and
  patterns.
• Juberg, Alfano, Coughlin Thompson (2001) found
  pacifiers to be the most common object mouthed by
  infants and children 0 to 36 months and that
  children in the age group 0 to 18 months mouthed
  pacifiers significantly longer than other
  objects, 108 minutes as recorded by the parents
  each day. An object in the mouth may cause the
  infant to have decreased opportunities for
  exploring the articulators, and muscular movement
  used for speech phonemes. Because Pacifiers are
  typically used between 0 and 36 months, there is
  concern regarding the childs progression through
  the stages of fricative development as described
  by Ingram (1978).

• .

While 7 of the children who used pacifiers did
not produce fricatives by 18 months, 11 children
did produce fricative by 18 months. Every child
who began using a pacifier longer than two weeks
after birth produced at least one fricative in
words at 18 months. Ten (10) of the 13 children
who used a pacifier for 120 minutes or less, per
day produced at least one fricative in words at
18 months. LIMITATIONS FUTURE RESEARCH A
limitation of this study is that parents were
asked to retrospectively remember details of
their childrens pacifier use. Future research
should consider a greater range of ages at which
pacifier use began, and detailed prospective data
regarding the length of time the child used a
pacifier
PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to
examine the effect of use of pacifiers on
emergence of fricatives in infants and children
prior to 18 months. The production of fricatives
by infants and children who both did and did not
use pacifiers was examined to determine the
relationship between pacifier use and the use of
fricatives at 18 months.