In this retrospective study, we compared the early speech development between infants with cerebral palsy (CP) and typically developing (TD) infants. The recordings of utterances were collected from two CP infants and two typically-developing (TD) infants at approximately 8 and 24 months old. The data was analyzed by volubility, consonant emergence, canonical babbling ratio (CBR), mean babbling level (MBL). The major findings show that comparing with TD group, CP group has the characteristics of: 1) lower volubility 2) CBRutter below 0.15 at 2 years old 3) MBL score below 2 at the age of 2 with a feature of above 95% in level 1 4) using consonants mainly at two oral places (bilabials and velars) and three manners of articulation (nasal, fricative, and stop) at 2 years old.

This study aims to develop a better understanding of the speech timing development in Mandarin-speaking children from 3 to 4 years of age. Data were selected from two typically developing children. Four 50-min recordings were collected during 3 and 4 years old based on natural conversation among the observers, participants, and the parents, and the picture-naming task. Speech timing were measured by Praat, including speaking rate, articulation rate, mean length of utterance (MLUs), mean utterance duration, mean word duration, pause ratio, and volubility. Major findings of the current study are: 1) Five measurements (speaking rate, mean length of utterance(MLUs), mean utterance length, mean word duration and volubility) decreased with age in both children; 2) Articulation rate of both children increased with age; 3) Comparing with the findings from previous studies, pause ratio of both slightly increased with age. These findings not only contribute to a more comprehensive data for assessment, it also can be a reference in speech intervention.