• 음성과학
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.35-42
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• 2007

The aim of this study is to analyze the correlation between current intensity and amplitude of stimulus artifact on the cochlear implantee, and to find out basic information to check the device failure. Subjects were a prelingual child and 3 postlingual adults with more than severe hearing losses. The charge-balanced biphasic pulses were presented at stimulus rates of 11 pulses per second, each pulse width of $25{\mu}s$ with monopolar mode(MP1+2). Current intensities were delivered at 27.5, 33.7, 41.3, 50.5, 61.9, $75.8{\mu}A$. Stimulus artifacts were recorded by evoked potential system. This procedure was performed just before the initial stimulation, and then, the amplitude of stimulus artifacts were compared with each current intensity. The amplitude of stimulus artifacts was increased significantly according to the current intensity (p<0.01). The results suggest that the change of the amplitude of stimulus artifact can be used as a good cue to check the device failure in the cochlear implantee.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.25-31
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• 2008

It is well known that temporal information, i.e speech onset, about input speech can be represented to the response nerve signal of auditory nerve better depending on the adaptation effect occurred in the auditory nerve synapse. In addition, the performance of a speech processor of cochlear implant can be improved by the adaptation effect. In this paper, we observed the emphasis characteristic of speech onset in the recently proposed adaptation algorithm, analyzed the characteristic of performance change according to the variation of parameters and compared with transient emphasis spectral maxima (TESM) is the previous typical strategy. When observing false peaks which are generated everywhere except speech onset, in the case of the proposed model, the false peak were generated much less than in the case of the TESM and it is more distinguishable under noise.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 2007년도 한국음성과학회 공동학술대회 발표논문집
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• pp.64-66
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to compare and analyze some acoustic parameters of the cochlear implanted children(N=20, aged 3-10) and to suggest a basic data on speech rehabilitaion for the cochlear implanted children. Acoustic analyses of seven Korean monophthongs produced by 4 contexts(V, CV, VC, CVC) were conducted for the cochler implanted children and normal hearing children(N=20, aged 3-10). Subjects were asked to pronounce a list of vowel repeating three times. The results of this study are the same as follows: First, in the case of the cochlear implanted group, there were no significant differences in F1 and F2. Second, in the case of the normal hearing group, there were significant differences in F2 /ㅜ/ between V and CVC, between VC and CVC. Third, there were significant differences in F1, F2 between CI group and normal hearing group.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제3권3호
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• pp.157-165
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• 2011

This study investigated speech rate and intonation slope (least square method; F0, quarter-tone) in normal and CI children's utterances. Each group consisted of 12 people and were divided into groups of children with CI operation (before 3;00), children with CI operation (after 3;00), and normal children. Materials are composed of four kinds of grammatical dialogue sentences which are lacking in respect. Given three groups as independent variables and both speech rate and intonation slope as dependent variables, a one-way ANOVA showed that normal children had faster speech rates and steeper intonation slopes than those of the CI group. More specifically, there was a statistically significant speech rate difference between normal and CI children in all of the sentential patterns but imperative form (p<.01). Additionally, F0 and qtone slope observed in sentential final word showed a significant statistical difference between normal and CI children in imperative form (f0: p<.01; q-tone: p<.05).

• 음성과학
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.147-160
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• 2007

This study was aimed to evaluate effect of parents-centered speech intervention program on overall speech and language performances of children with cochlear implant. Ten pairs of mother and child were selected and assigned into two groups: intervention group(G1) and control group(G2). G1 included 5 children with cochlear implant and their mothers who joined the parents-centered program. G2 consisted of 5 children with cochlear implant and their mothers did not participate in the program. To evaluate their speech and language abilities, examination instruments(Preschool Language Scale, and Language Comprehension and Cognition Test) were analyzed. Performances of pre- and post-treatment were analysed by ANOVA procedure. The results were as follows: There were significant differences of speech and language performances between pre- and post-treatment in G1. But there were no significant differences in G2(therapists centered program). G1 showed better performances in language comprehension than G2. This study revealed that parents centered language intervention program would be effective for speech and language development for children with cochlear implant.

• 한국음향학회지
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• 제24권7호
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• pp.379-386
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• 2005

최근까지 개발되었던 청각 보조기 중에서 공기 전도형 보청기의 하울링 (howling) 현상과 수술 후 이소골 등 기존 음향계의 재생이 불가능한 인공 와우 (cochlear implant system)의 단점을 해결하고, 동시에 청음 명료도가 높은 음성 신호를 전달하기 위한 수단으로 연구된 것이 인공중이 (implantable middle ear hearing device) 이다. 본 연구에서는 인공중이의 음성 신호 재현을 위한 진동 장치인 차동전자 트랜스듀서 (differential electromagnetic transducer, DET)에 대한 수학적 모형화와 계의 진동을 기술하는 운동방정식을 유도하고 그 해를 구하였다. 제한된 크기와 인가 전류 $1\;mA_{rms}$ 정현파에서 최대 구동력을 얻기 위해서 전자기력에 대한 유한요소해석을 수행하였고, 결과에 의해서 자석과 코일에 대한 최적 크기를 결정하였다. 사람의 중이 내 등자뼈 (stapes)의 진동 특성과 유사한 진동을 갖는 DET를 설계하기 위해서, 진동막의 강성계수를 변화하면서 진동해석을 시뮬레이션 하였다. 설계된 DET는 마이크로 머시닝 기술에 의해서 제작하였고, 그 진동 특성을 측정 하였다. 최종적으로 측정된 진동 특성에 대한 분석을 통하여 인공중이를 위한 진동 장치로서의 적용 가능함을 확인하였다.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제2권3호
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• pp.171-178
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• 2010

This study examined the relationship between speech intelligibility and comprehensibility for hearing impaired children with cochlear implants. Speech intelligibility was measured by orthographic transcription method for acoustic signal at the level of words and sentences. Comprehensibility was evaluated by examining listener's ability to answer questions about the contents of a narrative. Speech samples were collected from 12 speakers(age of 6~15 years) with cochlear implants. For each speaker, 4 different listeners(total of 48 listeners) completed 2 tasks: One task involved making orthographic transcriptions and the other task involved answering comprehension questions. The results of the study were as follows: (1) Speech intelligibility and comprehensibility scores tended to be increased by decreasing of severity. (2) Across all speakers, the relationship was significant between speech intelligibility and comprehensibility scores without considering severity. However, within severity groups, there was the significant relationship between comprehensibility and speech intelligibility only for moderate-severe group. These results suggest that speech intelligibility scores measured by orthographic transcription may not accurately reflect how well listener comprehend speech of children with cochlear implants and therefore, measures of both speech intelligibility and listener comprehension should be considered in evaluating speech ability and information-bearing capability in speakers with cochlear implants.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제5권4호
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• pp.71-78
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to compare the acoustic voice outcomes of children with cochlear implant to those of children with normal hearing. Participants were 41 children using unilateral cochlear implant (18 males and 23 females), and children with normal hearing from the same age and sex. Mean age of implantation was approximately 3 years old, mean duration of implant use was 4 years in CI group. Acoustic analyses were performed using MDVP of CSL. Speech samples were 3 sustained vowels, /a, i, u/. 9 parameters (F0, Fhi, Flo, Jitter, Shimmer, vF0, vAm, NHR, and SPI) were analyzed. Children with CI did not show the significant differences in those parameters after the vowel /a/ phonation. Meanwhile, there were significantly different results in F0, Fhi, vF0, and SPI after /i, u/ phonation. These results revealed that differences of voice characteristics in children with CI compare to children with NH persist regarding vowel context. It suggests that high vowels would recommend as speech samples for acoustic evaluation. Futhermore perceptual analysis and speech therapy for phonation control would be necessary for children with CI.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제6권4호
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• pp.171-179
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• 2014

Purposes: Speech acceptability means the subjective judgement of listeners regarding the naturalness and normality of the speech. The purpose of this study was to determine the predicting variables for speech acceptabilities of children with cochlear implants. Methods: Twenty seven children with CI participated. They had profound pre-lingual hearing loss without any additional disabilities. The mean of chronological ages was 8;9, and mean of age of implantation was 2;11. Speech samples of reading and spontaneous speech were recorded separately. Twenty college students who were not familiar to the speech of deaf children evaluated the speech acceptabilities using visual analog scale. 1 segmental (articulation) and 6 suprasegmental features (pitch, loudness, quality, resonance, intonation, and speaking rate) of speech were perceptually evaluated by 3 SLPs. Correlation and multiple regression analysis were performed to evaluate the predicting variables. Results: The means of speech acceptability for reading and spontaneous speech were 73.47 and 71.96, respectively. Speech acceptability of reading was predicated by the severity of intonation and articulation. Speech acceptability of spontaneous speech was predicated by the severity of intonation and loudness. Discussion and conclusion: Severity of intonation was the most effective variable to predict the speech acceptabilities of both reading and spontaneous speech. A further study would be necessary to generalize the result and to apply this result to intervention in clinical settings.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제4권4호
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• pp.117-127
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• 2012

This research reports the prosodic characteristics (including articulation speech rate, pause characteristics, duration) of children with cochlear implants with reference to those of children with normal hearing. Subjects are 8-to 10-year-old children, balancing each number of gender as 24. Dialogue speech data are comprised of four types of sentence patterns. Results show that 1) there's a statistically meaningful difference on articulation speech rate between the two groups. 2) On pauses, they are not observed in exclamatory and declarative sentences in normal children. While imperative sentences show no statistical difference on the number of pauses between the two groups, interrogative sentences do. 3) Declarative, exclamatory, and interrogative sentences reveal statistical difference between the two groups in terms of the sentence's final two-syllable word duration, showing no difference on imperative sentences. 4) When it comes to the RFP (duration ratio of sentence final syllable to penultimate syllable), we no statistically meaningful difference between the two groups in all types of sentences exists. 5) Lastly, RWS (the ratio of sentence final two syllable word duration to that of whole sentence duration) shows statistical difference between two groups in imperative sentences, but not in all the rest types.