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Current signal processing techniques do not match the astonishing ability of the Human Auditory System in recognizing isolated vowels, particularly in the case of female or child speech. As didactic and clinical interactive applications are needed using sound as the main medium of interaction, new signal features must be used that capture important perceptual cues more effectively than popular features such as formants. In this paper we propose the new concept of Perceptual Spectral Cluster (PSC) and describe its implementation. Test results are presented for child and adult speech, and indicate that features elicited by the PSC concept permit reliable and robust identification of vowels, even at high pitches.