Esquemas motores vocais e as primeiras palavras

Abstract

Introduction: This research starts from the need to pay more attention to the early first words, considering the phonological specificities and the relation with the lexical level, in longitudinal data, with short gaps, so that they can access the nuances of the minor changes in the child's speech. In the transition from babbling to first words, the child develops Vocal Motors Schemes (VMS), consistent productions of certain consonants and syllables or stable articulatory routines. Consonants from the canonical babble tend to integrate VMS and culminate in the first words, which reveals the gradient between the stages. VMS provide dual information, both auditory and articulatory, and can lead to a regularity in production, as speech programs, reducing the overall processing burden. The formation of different VMS leads to rapid lexical advances. It is based on the hypothesis that they are directly related to speech motor planning and programming, implicit and explicit learning mechanisms that culminate in the first words. Objective: To analyze the resources and the gradient changes in children's speech, from babbling to the first words. Methods: Data from the Longitudinal Corpus of Speech Acquisition – CLAF (VOGELEY, 2017), composed of longitudinal data of a child, by birth at 24 months, with maximum intervals of 24 hours between the records. The child is a male, monolingual Brazilian-speaking speaker, with a typical development. Results: VMS, at 10 months of age, with phonemes / p / and / m / supported the production of words [pa.'pa] and [mã'mã], for mom and dad, at 12 months. At 16 months, VMS with the / pl / sequence, consisting of phonemes that previously comprised isolated motor programs, integrate ['plã'plã'plã], followed by the word planta [' plã.]. Preference for the phoneme /l/ already existed in the babbling patterns. Implicit learning mechanisms justify a preferential consonant. It was observed interaction between frequency of production of consonants in VMS and first words, besides precision in repeated syllables. Conclusions: The first 10 words had programmed forms in VMS, which served as pre-established speech engine programs, or phonetic support for the first words. The pre-programmed sound sequences in the VMS make it easier to acquire a meaning mapping by incorporating this sequence.