NationStates Jolt Archive

I've been working with a child with autism and verbal dyspraxia. He has a huge amount of trouble making sounds, let alone forming whole words. Recently we've been trying to add the 'puh' sound to his vocabulary, but he keeps coming out with the 'buh' sound he already knows. So here we are wracking our brains and mouths trying to figure out what we do differently when we make the 'buh' and 'puh' sounds. But I just can't figure it out. :confused:

I suppose you could consider this homework, but I think it's all very interesting and thought I'd share. Another two similar sounds are 'duh' and 'tuh'.

The "puh" requires the air to be expelled with more force than the "buh". That's the whole difference, really.

The reason why he's pronouncing P and B the same is because they're both bilabial plosives. When we say both sounds, we start by closing our mouths and blowing out air as we open our mouths. The difference between the two is that we use our vocal cords in addition to our breath when we make the B sound. If you place your fingers on your throat as you say P and B, you'll notice that your vocal cords vibrate on the B and not the P.

He has difficulty with D and T for the same reason. They're both alveolar plosives, but we use our vocal cords with D and not T.

Puh and buh are quite different. Otherwise Bablo B'casso wouldn't be painting mutants with ears for eyes.

If we didn't differentiate puh from buh, we lose a lot of words. When we figure that out and we want to create words that aren't ballkickingly unpronounceable, we shove puh in.

Even MORE importantly, WE dictate how we talk. Us humans are the pinnacle of self awareness! :)

The "puh" requires the air to be expelled with more force than the "buh". That's the whole difference, really.Haha, his Mum's spoken with a speech therapist who said it was pretty much the other way around. They approximated 'puh' to be more of a whisper and 'buh' to be more of a shout... I'm not entirely sure I agree with either very much. I do notice that the air comes out faster in the 'puh' than the 'buh', but I can get the air to come out just as fast, but still make a 'buh' sound. So I think it's more of a symptom of something else than the direct causation.

The reason why he's pronouncing P and B the same is because they're both bilabial plosives. When we say both sounds, we start by closing our mouths and blowing out air as we open our mouths. The difference between the two is that we use our vocal cords in addition to our breath when we make the B sound. If you place your fingers on your throat as you say P and B, you'll notice that your vocal cords vibrate on the B and not the P.

He has difficulty with D and T for the same reason. They're both alveolar plosives, but we use our vocal cords with D and not T.That's seems very knowledgeable - even a textbook definition. Do you work in a related field? Having just spent a few minutes saying 'baby' and 'papy'. I think what makes it hard to work out these sounds is that they can't be sustained for any length of time like 'a', 's', or 'f' can be.

Shortly after I posted this I got a phone call from my Mum and talked to her about it. She that when editing video they use 'puh' and 'buh' (especially 'puh') to sync up the audio to video. Probably because they're 'plosives'? She said especially the the 'puh' because she says the lip moves ever so slightly just before the lips open.

Haha, his Mum's spoken with a speech therapist who said it was pretty much the other way around. They approximated 'puh' to be more of a whisper and 'buh' to be more of a shout... I'm not entirely sure I agree with either very much. I do notice that the air comes out faster in the 'puh' than the 'buh', but I can get the air to come out just as fast, but still make a 'buh' sound. So I think it's more of a symptom of something else than the direct causation.

Sounds like a poorly explained/understood laymans explanation of voiced/unvoiced consonants.

That's seems very knowledgeable - even a textbook definition. Do you work in a related field? Having just spent a few minutes saying 'baby' and 'papy'. I think what makes it hard to work out these sounds is that they can't be sustained for any length of time like 'a', 's', or 'f' can be.

Shortly after I posted this I got a phone call from my Mum and talked to her about it. She that when editing video they use 'puh' and 'buh' (especially 'puh') to sync up the audio to video. Probably because they're 'plosives'? She said especially the the 'puh' because she says the lip moves ever so slightly just before the lips open.

It's a nice little techy definition. Even more proper definitions would be "voiced" and "unvoiced" bilabial plosives. Voiced means the vocal cords vibrate, voicless means they don't. That's the vibration in the throat.

/p/ and /b/ are "plosive" stps, where the movement of air is stopped completely, where /s/ and /f/ are "fricatives", where the airflow isn't stopped.

Features of the voiceless bilabial plosive:

* Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
* Its place of articulation is bilabial which means it is articulated with both lips.
* Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
* It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
* It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
* The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_bilabial_plosive


Features of the voiced bilabial plosive:

* Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
* Its place of articulation is bilabial which means it is articulated with both lips.
* Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
* It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
* It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
* The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_bilabial_plosive

(I is an Engrish teacher, not a linguist.)

I took a linguistics class in college. I loved it and remembered a lot. What a don't remember I just look up. It's fascinating and gives you a deeper understanding of how language works and why different languages pronounce things they way they do.

I would imagine they sync up B and P because they're an obvious facial movement. You're closing your mouth in a different way than an O or F. Also, what make B and P stand out from other letters aurally is that, because they're plosives, you break the airflow to your vocal cords. That doesn't happen with most sounds. K breaks the airflow, but I don't think that would be used to sync because, when spoken, it looks like you're mouthing a vowel.