Relationships between duration and temporal variability in children’s speech

Various studies of speech production development have observed that duration and temporal variability tend to decrease as children get older. Because both of these factors are commonly viewed as general indicators of neuromotor maturation of children's speech skills, it would seem reasonable to assume that they should be rather closely correlated with one another. However, an examination of a variety of temporal data from children ranging between approximately 2 1/2 and 9 1/2 years of age indicates that there is not necessarily as close a correspondence between these two variables as might be expected. It also appears that children's duration measures tend to be more adultlike than measures of their intrasubject variability.