• Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.141-149
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• 1999

Parental speaking rates reduction is frequently recommended by speech-language pathologists as a way to facilitate the fluency of preschool children who stutter. However, this clinical notion is in need of empirical support. For this reason, Sim & Zebrowski (1995) examined the ability of young children imitating different speaking rates. However, Sim & Zebrwoski's study was not made in a natural context but in the laboratory, so the findings are limited to apply to the clinical situation. The current study aimed to examine the ability of three different speaking rates(baseline, 10% slower, and 24% slower) in a natural situation both with instruction and without instruction. The results show that (1) all children were able to imitate the stimulus speaking rates adequately, (2) instruction about speaking rates for each child influenced the ability to imitate slower speaking rates. These clinical implications of findings in this study are that 4-5 year-old children are able to imitate different speaking rates with instruction and can be candidates for the parental speaking rates reduction program in the stutter therapy.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.83-95
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• 2006

This study attempts to suggest a criterion of Korean language development. For this purpose we investigated speaking rates of the spontaneous utterances produced by 144 children, aged 3 to 8. We analyzed each subject's speaking rate and its relevance with speaker's age, gender and utterance length. To determine the relative contributions of variables to the speaking rate, multiple regression was conducted. Results of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) The mean and maximum values of the speaking rate increased with the growth of age. (2) A statistically significant increase in speaking rate appeared at two-year intervals. (3) There was no significant difference between male and female groups in the speaking rate. (4) The multiple regression analysis has shown that along with the speaker's age, the utterance length(the mean number of syllables per utterance) is also important in estimating the speaking rates.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.39-48
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• 2009

Previous studies on the effects of speaking rate on voice onset time (VOT) of stops in English, French, Icelandic, and Thai indicate that speaking rate asymmetrically affects VOT values. That is, pre-voiced and long-lag stops vary due to the rate factor more than short-lag stops do. One suggested explanation for this asymmetry is that it is due to the necessity of maintaining phonetic contrasts among the stop categories. Since pre-voiced and long-lag stops represent the ends of the VOT scale, they encompass broad swathes of that range and consequently allow for large variations. On the other hand, the VOT variations of short-lag stops may result in overlap with the VOTs of long-lag stops. This study aimed to explore the effects of speaking rate on the VOTs of Korean stops and see whether Korean fortis and lenis stops are limited in the degrees of variation as a function of rates due to the existence of stops with larger VOT values, lenis and aspirated stops respectively. Conversely, aspirated stops were expected to show more variation since there are no other categories with longer VOTs. Fortis, lenis, and aspirated stops in /CVn/ words (C = bilabial or velar stop, V = /i/ or /a/) were examined in isolation, and at normal and fast rates in a carrier sentence. Speaking rates were controlled by alternating words or sentences on a computer screen at intervals of two seconds for the isolation- and normal-rate conditions and one second for the fast-rate condition. This study found that while the VOTs of fortis stops did not change significantly, those of lenis and aspirated stops showed considerable changes as a function of speaking rates. Also, overlap between lenis and aspirated stops occurred considerably at all speaking rates. These phenomena were interpreted to relate to the fact that VOT contrasts between lenis and aspirated stops in Korean are currently being collapsed. Large variations of lenis stops as a function of rates seem to occur due to a weak motivation to limit the degree of variations for the purpose of maintaining phonetic contrasts. The significant overlap between lenis and aspirated stops at all rates was interpreted to occur because the VOT merger between the two categories became considerably fixed. Also the percentage of correctly-classified VOTs by optimal-boundary values between lenis and aspirated stops turned out to be lower than in previously-studied languages. This was interpreted to be further evidence that VOTs are losing their role in contrasting the two stop categories in Korean.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.45-50
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• 2018

The vowel/consonant ratio is a well-known cue for the voicing of postvocalic consonants. This study investigates how this ratio changes as a function of speaking rate. Seven speakers of North American English read sentences containing target monosyllabic words that contrasted in coda voicing at three different speaking rates. Duration measures were taken for the voice onset time (VOT) of the onset consonant, the vowel, and the coda. The results show that the durations of the onset VOT and vowel are longer before voiced codas, and that the durations of all segments increase monotonically as speaking rate decreases. Importantly, the vowel/consonant ratio, a primary acoustic cue for coda voicing, was found to pattern asymmetrically for voiced and voiceless codas; it increases for voiced codas but decreases for voiceless codas with the decrease in speaking rate. This finding suggests that there is no stable ratio in the duration of preconsonantal vowels that is maintained in different speaking styles.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.14-22
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• 2003

In this study, we examined the acoustic characteristics of Korean vowels through a production test under three conditions of speaking rates (slow, normal, fast). The effects of a change in speaking .ate on vowel duration were found to be very strong. The faster speaking rate was, the shorter the total duration of vowels was. But the duration ratio of two components of diphthong was not changed significantly according to changes in speaking rate. But unlike the temporal aspects, the formant value of vowels at their steady-state and change ratio of formant of semivowels were not affected strongly by the change in speaking rate.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.121-126
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• 2012

This study deals with how stuttering changes in its frequency in a situation where adult participants who stutter are exposed to one type of background noise, that is, multi-talker babble noise. Eight American English-speaking adults who stutter participated in this study. Each of the subjects read aloud sentences under each of three speaking conditions (i.e., typical solo reading (TSR), typical choral reading (TCR), and multi-talker babble noise reading (BNR)). Speech fluency was computed based on a percentage of syllables stuttered (%SS) and speaking rate was also assessed to examine if there was significant change in rates as a measure of vocal change under each of the speaking conditions. The study found that participants read more fluently both during BNR and during TCR than during TSR. The study also found that participants did not show significant changes in speaking rate across the three speaking conditions. Some discussion was provided in relation to the effect of multi-talker babble noise on the frequency of stuttering and its further speculation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.27-39
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• 2017

This paper deals with how speech rate in Korean is affected by the sociolinguistic factors such as region, gender and generation. Speech rate was quantified as articulation rate (excluding physical pauses) and speaking rate (including physical pauses), both expressed as the number of syllables per second (sps). Other acoustic measures such as pause frequency and duration were also examined. Four hundred twelve subjects were chosen from Korean Standard Speech Database considering their age, gender and region. The result shows that generation has a significant effect on both speaking rate and articulation rate. Younger speakers produce their speech with significantly faster speaking rate and articulation rate than older speakers. Mean duration of total pause interval and the total number of pause of older speakers are also significantly different to those of younger speakers. Gender has a significant effect only on articulation rate, which means male speakers' speech rate is characterized by faster articulation rate, longer and more frequent pauses. Finally, region has no effect both on speaking and articulation rates.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.159-168
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to assess the speech rate, fluency and the type of dysfluencies of normal adults in order to provide a basic data of normal speaking. The number of subjects of this study were 30(14 females and 16 males), and their ages ranged 17 to 36. The rate was measured as syllables per minute (SPM). The speech rates in reading ranged 273-426 with a mean of 348 SPM and in speaking ranges 118-409 (mean=265). The average of their fluencies was 99.1% in reading and 96.9% in speaking. The rater reliability of speech rate in the data assessed by video was very high (r=0.98) and the rater reliability of speech fluency was moderately high (r=0.67). The disfluency types were also analysed from 150 disfluency episodes. Syllable repetition and word interjection were the most common disfluent types.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.273-284
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• 2000

The purpose of this study was to investigate speech rate and fluency in stuttering adults. It was suggested that a measurement guideline of speech rate and fluency for collecting clinically meaningful data be used. Subjects included 10 adults who stutter (mean age=25;8). Syllables were used as the unit of measurement for analyzing the duration of speech. The mean rate was 241 SPM (syllables per minute) for reading, and 196 SPM for spontaneous speaking. Fluency was also measured in both cases. The correlation between rate of speech and fluency was high (r=0.92). A strong positive correlation was found between different investigators in measuring speech rates and fluencies.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.93-103
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to establish preliminary data on the speech rates in groups of normal speaking adults and children. The results of the present study are intended to serve as clinical measurement guidelines for diagnosis, assessment, treatment planning, and therapy progresses of stuttering. Thirty-one adults (16 females, 15 males), aged 18-30 years and thirty normally developing children (15 females, 15 males), aged 8-10, participated in the study. The subjects' reading of the Stroll (Jeong, 1994) passage and l-minute portion of talking about the daily routine were sampled. The adult speakers had rates of $308.29\pm22.57$ syllables per minute (SPM) or $108.06\pm6.17$ words per minute (WPM) during reading, and $252.87\pm40.86$ SPM and $92.26\pm17.12$ WPM during talking. The children had rates of $176.67\pm33.65$ SPM or $64.07\pm12.62$ WPM during reading, and $149.30\pm33.14$ SPM and $56.60\pm11.36$ WPM during talking. The results of t-tests for reading and talking tasks in adults showed that SPM in reading (t=2.211, p< .05) and WPM in talking (t=-2.284, p< .05) differed significantly by the gender. To answer the questions whether the rate is different across children' s gender and age, a two-way ANOVA was performed. Both SPM and WPM in reading tasks were significantly different between groups of children aged 8 and 10 (p< 01), In speaking tasks, both SPM and WPM were significantly different between groups of children aged 8 and 10, and between 9 and 10.