• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.85-94
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• 2015

This study is to investigate the characteristic of tonal elements in word utterance of 30 pre-school children. For the analyses, 240 utterances of 4 syllable words were processed to extract acoustic values and then the data was transformed into tonal height in order to examine the contour. The results show that the mean pitch of a note is $C4{\frac{1}{2}}(271.17Hz)$ and high and low pitched notes are $C5{\frac{1}{2}}(452.57Hz)$ and $G{\sharp}3{\frac{1}{2}}(192.54Hz)$. The pitch patterns of the 4 syllables measured at the frication and aspiration portion are $E4{\frac{1}{2}}-F4-B3{\frac{1}{2}}-A3$ and F4-E4-B3-A3. The pitch patterns of consonant clusters are $B3{\frac{1}{2}}-D4-B3{\frac{1}{2}}-A3{\frac{1}{2}}$ and $A{\sharp}3{\frac{1}{2}}-C4-A3-D4{\frac{1}{2}}$. The analyses of tonal elements in this study provide evidentiary data on tonal height helpful for developing melodic contour.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.63-73
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• 2015

This study investigated longitudinally early vocalization and phonological developments of typically developing children. Ten typically developing children participated in the study from 9 months to 18 months of age. Spontaneous utterance samples were collected at 9, 12, 15, 18 months of age and phonetically transcribed and analyzed. Utterance samples were classified into 5 levels using Stark Assessment of Early Vocal Development-Revised(SAEVD-R). The data analysis focused on 4 and 5 levels of vocalizations classified by SAEVD-R and word productions. The percentage of each vocalization level, vocalization length, syllable structures, and consonant inventory were obtained. The results showed that the percentages of level 4 and 5 vocalizations and word significantly increased with age and the production of syllable structures containing consonants significantly increased around 12 and 15 months of age. On average, the children produced 4 types of syllable structure and 5.4 consonants at 9 months and they produced 5 types of syllable structure and 9.8 consonants at 18 months. The phonological development patterns in this study were consistent with those analyzed from children's meaningful utterances in previous studies. The results support the perspective on the continuity between babbling and early speech. This study has clinical implications in early identification and speech-language intervention for young children with speech delays or at risk.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.55-62
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• 2015

It is widely accepted that Parkinson's disease(PD) is the most common cause of hypokinetic dysarthria, and its characteristics of 'short rushes of speech' have become more evident along with the severity of motor disorders. Speech alternate motion rates (AMRs) are particularly useful for observing not only rate abnormalities but also deviant speech. However, relatively little is known about the characteristics of 'short rushes of speech' in terms of AMRs of PD except for the perceptual characteristics. The purpose of this study was to examine which acoustic features of 'short rushes of speech' in terms of AMRs are a robust indicator of Parkinsonian speech. Numbers of syllabic repetitions (/pə/, /tə/, /kə/) in AMR tasks were analyzed through acoustic methods observing a spectrogram of the Computerized Speech Lab in 9 patients with PD. Acoustically, we found three characteristics of 'short rushes of speech': 1) Vocalized consonants without closure duration(VC) 76.3%; 2) No consonant segmentation(NC) 18.6%; 3) No vowel formant frequency(NV) 5.1%. Based on these results, 'short rushes of speech' may affect the failure to reach and maintain the phonatory targets. In order to best achieve the therapeutic goals, and to make the treatment most efficacious, it is important to incorporate training methods which are based on both phonation and articulation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.9-17
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• 2015

In the present study, we investigated ability of recognition of auditory perception with regards to the quality of voice in postlingual CI adults and proposed a training program to improve within subject reliability. A prospective case-control study was conducted in adults with 7 postlingual deaf who received a CI surgery and 10 normal hearing controls. The pre and post test and training program included parameters of consensus auditory-perceptual evaluation of voice(CAPE-V) with pathological voice sample by using Alvin. In results of pre-post test for monitoring improvements of internal reliability for listeners via the training program, there was statistically significant difference in both test and group. There was statistically significant difference in internal reliability between pre-post test in the normal hearing group, the result was no significant in the CI group. The present study found that CI adults showed less ability in awareness of voice quality compared to normal hearing group. Also the training program improved pitch and loudness in CI adults.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.47-54
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• 2015

The objectives of this study are to research the frequency of depression symptom in patients with voice disorders and to investigate parameters associated with depression from voice evaluation. A hundred ninety six patients(106 males and 90 females) who had been diagnosed with voice disorders first in their lifetime were selected. All the patients were examined by laryngeal stroboscopy. For depression and voice study, personal interview, acoustic and aerodynamic analysis, voice handicap index(VHI), reflux symptom index(RSI), and beck depression index(BDI) were done respectively. Mild to severe BDI were seen in 26.2%(52 patients) of the whole patients. A BDI mean score of female patients was $8.8{\pm}7.5$ which was higher than that of male patients($5.6{\pm}6.6$), the difference observed being statistically significant(p<0.001). In the acoustic analysis, the score of sent_duration parameter was increasing in the patients with depression, which was significantly higher than the score of the patients without depression(p<0.05). In the addition, the scores of VHI and RSI were higher in the patients with depression(p<0.001). Our findings suggest that the prevalence of depression in patients with voice disorders is related to female, speaking velocity, and self-questionnaire. This result can be used for psychologically based approach to therapy.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.29-38
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• 2015

This study explores reading fluency among elementary school students considering language level and family income(low SES). Forty eight students from 1st to 3rd grades participated in two paragraph reading tasks. Half of the children were from low income family and half of the children had low lexical knowledge. Reading fluency as in the number of correctly read syllables per minute, the total error frequency and error types were used to compare group differences. There were significant differences in the number of correctly read syllables per minute between two income groups and two language groups. There was a significant difference between low income group and non-low income group in total number of errors only when children's lexical knowledge were low. There were no group differences in error types of repetition and omission. Substitution and insertion error seemed to reflect the total error pattern. These results imply the importance of early screening and early involvement for children with low lexical knowledge from low income family. Monitoring and early intervention will support these children's reading development.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.3-8
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• 2015

Denasalization that nasals are replaced by stops is an unusual error pattern related to manner of articulation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of denasalization and to scrutinize the nasal production according to phonological context for typically developing children and children with speech sound disorders(SSD). 220 typically developing children and 48 SSD children from 2~6 years of age were tested with a formal word test, and those who demonstrate denasalization were selected. In addition, the nasal production of SSD children with denasalization were analyzed for the correctness and the error types using the formal word test and spontaneous conversation. The results were as follows: (1) Denasalization was shown in below 10% of 2-3 years of age with typically developing children and in above 20% of 2-5 years of age with SSD. (2) The SSD children who demonstrate denasalization were categorized into 4 types according to the error context of nasals; nasal errors with all word positions, nasal errors with word-final and word-medial positions, nasal errors with word-medial position preceding vowels, and nasal errors with word-medial position preceding obstruents. These results indicate that denasalization is a clinically important error pattern, and word-medial position preceding obstruents is an essential context for denasalization in terms of Korean phonotactics.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.3-10
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• 2011

This study examined the production of aspirated stop consonants in Korean and English words to address how the influences differed particularly in terms of proficiency in L2 English. Voice onset times (VOTs) were measured from two American monolinguals and seven Korean speakers. The results showed that VOT patterns for both L1 and L2 stops differed according to their proficiency in L2 English. In L2 English, high proficient speakers produced VOTs that were similar to those of native speakers of English whereas low proficient speakers produced VOTs that were significantly longer than those of proficient speakers. In L1 Korean and L2 English, most of the proficient speakers produced VOTs similarly. Unlike previous findings, Korean VOTs were even shorter than English counterparts. The VOT shortening of aspirated stops in Korean was found for most of the proficient speakers. The findings of the present study suggest that cross language phonetic influences as well as the ongoing VOT shortening in Korean aspirated stops may be correlated with L2 proficiency. Since this is a pilot study with a small number of subjects for each proficiency group, further quantitative study is necessary to generalize.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.19-26
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• 2011

Previous laboratory studies have shown that prosodic structures are encoded in the modulations of phonetic patterns of speech including suprasegmental as well as segmental features. Drawing on a prosodically annotated large-scale speech data from the Buckeye corpus of conversational speech of American English, the current study first evaluated the reliability of prosody annotation by a large number of ordinary listeners and later examined whether and how prosodic prominence influences the phonetic realization of multiple acoustic parameters in everyday conversational speech. The results showed that all the measures of acoustic parameters including pitch, loudness, duration, and spectral balance are increased when heard as prominent. These findings suggest that prosodic prominence enhances the phonetic characteristics of the acoustic parameters. The results also showed that the degree of phonetic enhancement vary depending on the types of the acoustic parameters. With respect to the formant structure, the findings from the present study more consistently support Sonority Expansion Hypothesis than Hyperarticulation Hypothesis, showing that the lexically stressed vowels are hyperarticulated only when hyperarticulation does not interfere with sonority expansion. Taken all into account, the present study showed that prosodic prominence modulates the phonetic realization of the acoustic parameters to the direction of the phonetic strengthening in everyday conversational speech and ordinary listeners are attentive to such phonetic variation associated with prosody in speech perception. However, the present study also showed that in everyday conversational speech there is no single dominant acoustic measure signaling prosodic prominence and listeners must attend to such small acoustic variation or integrate acoustic information from multiple acoustic parameters in prosody perception.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.69-75
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• 2011

This paper investigates phrase positional effects on the timing of F0 (pitch) peaks in Tokyo Japanese disyllabic words with varying accent type (HL or LH) and phrase position (final or non final). The F0 peak timing was normalized by the total word duration ('normalized H timing'). The normalized H timing was significantly affected by accent type and phrase position. The H timing was later in the LH accent type than in the HL accent type, and in non final positions than in final positions. In addition, to examine the validity of the quantitative results, different models of phrase position effects were compared by measuring H timing in two approaches: normalization versus relative distance measures. For the normalization measures, the H timing was measured as the time of the F0 peak divided by the total word duration or by the duration of the tone bearing syllable. For the relative distance measures, the H timing was measured as the distance in milliseconds from the end of the word or from the end of the associated syllable. The best model was the normalization by the total word duration, rather than by the duration of the tone bearing syllable. This means that phrase positional effects on the timing of F0 peaks in Japanese disyllabic words are best modeled in terms of proportion of the total word duration.