Paralinguistic cues in the speech of withdrawn children

Thirty withdrawn (n = 15) and non-withdrawn (n = 15) Prince George school children from grades two to seven performed a public speech before their peers and an experimenter. The groups of children were compared in terms of paralinguistic vocal characteristics (mean speech production to total episode ratio, mean duration of pauses, filled pausing rate and mean variation of vocal pitch) and self report measures of social support and trait anxiety. Withdrawn children exhibited less speech and longer mean pause duration within the episode and reported lower levels of social support and higher levels of trait anxiety than did nonwithdrawn children. Paralinguistically, the relatively excessive silence and longer mean pause duration exhibited by the withdrawn children constitutes a qualitative rather than merely a quantitative behavioural difference from the non-withdrawn children. As excessive pausing is viewed as "unnattractive" by listeners (Siegman, 1987), the implications of passive and nonfluent vocal styles on peer acceptance are discussed.