Natasja Delbar is a PhD researcher at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. She is currently researching speech production mechanisms in young children, and she is a part of the PerPLex project, which focuses on the relationship between speech production and speech perception in toddlers.

More information about Natasja Delbar

Fields of interest

My current interests lies in first language acquisition, with a focus on the speech production process in toddlers and the role of self-monitoring. In the past, I have also done work in code-switching and (experimental) syntax.

Research

My work is part of the NWO project "The role of self-monitoring in the development of word production in young children" led by Prof. dr. C.C. Levelt (Leiden University) and Prof. dr. J.P.M Fikkert (Radboud University).

The project investigates how speech production and speech perception are linked in two-year-old children. Specifically, we are curious about the self-monitoring mechanism in these children, i.e., the extent to which they are able to adjust their speech by themselves when they slip up (e.g., saying ‘tuck’ instead of ‘truck’). Speech must be perceived and stored correctly and then produced correctly in order for developing speakers to reach the target word form. However, speech perception and production are both multi-level processes and thus may go "wrong" at several points.

My work will focus on speech production and aims to address questions such as:

• What should be revised and what can be revised according to developing speakers? Do revisions update the word form encoding mechanism?
• Are neutralized voicing contrasts such as 'pear' for both 'pear' and 'bear', commonly heard in child language productions, nevertheless specified differently in the mental lexicon? Can young speakers manipulate the phonetic encoding of neutralized contrasts, and if so, does this lead to updates in the phonetic encoding?
• Can developing speakers update the articulatory-motor plan in response to a perceived mismatch with their intended production? Is there a learning effect?

Curriculum vitae