• Speech Sciences
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• v.3
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• pp.5-17
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• 1998

Botulinum toxin, a neurotoxin derived from Clostridia Botulinum, has been injected into the target muscle(s) for the treatment of several kinds of voice and speech disorders at the Voice Clinic, Yonsei Institute of Logopedics and Phoniatrics since December 1995. Criteria for the diagnosis and method of injection for spasmodic dysphonia, mutational dysphonia, muscle tension dysphonia, dysphonia after total laryngectomy, and stuttering were summarized. Among 144 patients with adductor type spasmodic dysphonia, who were injected one time to maximum 8 times during the 27 months, 90% were recognized as having better than slight improvement. Even though the injected cases were small, not only the abductor type spasmodic dysphonia, but also the intractable mutational dysphonia or muscle tension dysphonia resistant to voice therapy revealed that botulinum toxin injection would be another options for treatment. Patients who cannot phonate after total laryngectomy and some forms of adulthood stutterers can also be candidates for the injection of botulinum toxin.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.65-76
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• 2019

This study aimed to primarily examine perceptions about occupational suitability made by vocational counselors for adults who stutter and associated factors. A total of 69 vocational counsellors (23 per condition) took part in this study and were randomly assigned to recordings related to three different speech conditions (fluent, less-severe stuttering, and severe stuttering versions). The participants were asked to listen to one of the three recordings and rate the speaker's communicative functioning, personal attributes, and suitability for 31 occupations, along with perceptions of the speaking demands and educational requirements of the occupations. Regarding the two stuttering conditions, it was found that suitability ratings were lower for occupations with a high speaking demand than those with a low speaking demand. In addition, the most significant factor associated with occupational suitability ratings was perceived speaking demands, followed by perceived educational requirements, and then by ratings of the speaker's personal attributes. These findings suggest that adults who stutter may face role entrapment (or occupational stereotyping) in workplace settings.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.71-80
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• 2023

This study primarily aimed to develop an automated stuttering identification and classification method using artificial intelligence technology. In particular, this study aimed to develop a deep learning-based identification model utilizing the convolutional neural networks (CNNs) algorithm for Korean speakers who stutter. To this aim, speech data were collected from 9 adults who stutter and 9 normally-fluent speakers. The data were automatically segmented at the phrasal level using Google Cloud speech-to-text (STT), and labels such as 'fluent', 'blockage', prolongation', and 'repetition' were assigned to them. Mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) and the CNN-based classifier were also used for detecting and classifying each type of the stuttered disfluency. However, in the case of prolongation, five results were found and, therefore, excluded from the classifier model. Results showed that the accuracy of the CNN classifier was 0.96, and the F1-score for classification performance was as follows: 'fluent' 1.00, 'blockage' 0.67, and 'repetition' 0.74. Although the effectiveness of the automatic classification identifier was validated using CNNs to detect the stuttered disfluencies, the performance was found to be inadequate especially for the blockage and prolongation types. Consequently, the establishment of a big speech database for collecting data based on the types of stuttered disfluencies was identified as a necessary foundation for improving classification performance.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.91-109
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• 2016

This study was mainly aimed to investigate on the perceptions of occupational suitability for speakers who stutter and the associated factors. 90 college students who do not stutter participated in this study and asked to hear one of three audio recordings(i.e., fluent version, mildly-stuttered version, and severely-stuttered version) of a male speaker who stuttered. Then, the participants were asked to rate the speaker's communicative functioning, personal attributes, and suitability for 31 occupations, along with perceptions of the occupations' speaking demands and educational requirements. Results show that speakers who stuttered (i.e., mildly-stuttered and severely-stuttered version) received lower suitability ratings for high speaking demand occupations than for low speaking demand occupations. In addition, it has been shown that perceived speaking demand strongly affected occupational suitability ratings at both levels of stuttering severity. However, it has been shown that occupational suitability ratings were not associated with ratings of the speaker's personal attributes and perceived educational requirements. From these findings it can be argued that adults who stutter may face occupational stereotyping and/or role entrapment in work settings.

• MALSORI
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• no.67
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• pp.61-77
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to blow the characteristics of disfluency in childhood. The subjects were 144 normal children at the age of between 3 to 8 years who lived in Seoul. All the subjects provided spontaneous conversational speech samples during free-play interactions with their friends. We investigated the patterns and the frequency of disfluency and its relevance with subject's age, speaking rate and MLU(mean length of utterance). The results of this study can be summarized as follows. (1) There was no difference in the frequency of disfluency with the speaker's age or speaking rate. (2) Interjection was the most frequently occurring pattern of disfluency. (3) Prolongation, revision, interjection increased with age while part-word repetition, single-syllable word repetition, multi-syllable word repetition decreased gradually. (4) A significant effect of MLU on the frequency of disfluencies were demonstrated. The regression analysis has shown that more disfluencies occurred in utterances of children whose MLU is longer.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.189-197
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• 2008

In the process of speech therapy, fluency is acquired and speech rate increases in the process when the behavioral modification strategy, inducing speech fluency by making speech rate slower intentionally in an early stage, is applied. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the pause characteristics in slowed speech intentionally of treated stutterer. In this study, 10 developmental stutterers who had well established fluency in speech were involved. We had collected each 200 syllables sample of intentionally much slowed speech and a little slowed one in reading task. To measure the features of pause, total frequency of pauses, total durations of pauses, average duration of pauses and proportions of pause were investigated. The findings were as follows: Both the total durations and total frequency of pauses of much slowed speech were higher than that of a little slowed one. However, both the average duration and proportions of pauses of much slowed speech were not significantly higher than that of a little slowed one.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.63-72
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• 2020

This study aims to develop a video-based smart utterance deep analyser (SUDA) application that analyzes semiautomatically the utterances that child and mother produce during interactions over time. SUDA runs on the platform of Android, iPhones, and tablet PCs, and allows video recording and uploading to server. In this device, user modes are divided into three modes: expert mode, general mode and manager mode. In the expert mode which is useful for speech and language evaluation, the subject's utterances are analyzed semi-automatically by measuring speech and language factors such as disfluency, morpheme, syllable, word, articulation rate and response time, etc. In the general mode, the outcome of utterance analysis is provided in a graph form, and the manger mode is accessed only to the administrator controlling the entire system, such as utterance analysis and video deletion. SUDA helps to reduce clinicians' and researchers' work burden by saving time for utterance analysis. It also helps parents to receive detailed information about speech and language development of their child easily. Further, this device will contribute to building a big longitudinal data enough to explore predictors of stuttering recovery and persistence.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.67-76
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• 2022

This study aimed to examine Korean listeners' mode of perceiving sound duration as prolongation, whether dichotomous or continuous. Thirty-five Korean participants (17 men and 18 women) listened to the Korean segment /s/, which was lengthened by 0-980ms in 20-ms increments. Then, the participants were asked to rate each version of the sound based on a rating of one to 100 (the closer to 100, the more disfluent). To examine whether listeners perceived durational variations for the fricative segment dichotomously or continuously, a curve was estimated using the best-fitting regression model for the observed data with the highest adjusted R-squared value. The mode of perceiving durational variations for the segment was continuous (or gradient) rather than discontinuous (or dichotomous). No gender difference was found in the mode of perceiving prolongation. However, there was a significant gender difference in that men rated the most disfluent sounds higher than women. The findings of this study were further discussed in relation to the existing literature, and clinical implications for the assessment of stuttering were presented.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.59-77
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• 2005

The aim of the present study is to investigate how the phonemic characteristics influence on the disfluencies of children and adults who stutter. The participants were 10 children(9 boys and 1 girl) and 10 male adults. After having the participants to read out the Paradise-Fluency Assessment(Sim, Shin & Lee, 2004) passages, each of the productions were divided into syllables and words, and then the frequencies and the ratios of their disfluenceis were analyzed according to the specified phonemic features. In terms of the frequency of the disfluency, the participants stuttered more in the words which start with consonant than vowel. But they showed more disfluencies in the words initiated with vowel than consonant when the ratio of each phoneme's presences were considered. There found different tendencies among the phonemic features related with their disfluencies occuring with ralatively high frequency or ratio. It was difficult to find out the exact relationships among the order of the sound acquisition, phonemic complexity, and the disfluencies. To study the exact influence of the phonemic features upon the disfluencies, it comes important to consider the frequency of the stuttering itself together with the ratio of the disfluencies in which the opportunity of the specific sound's presence was considered. To compare the results of the different studies which has similar purposes, it seems important to consider the tasks and the methodologies in depth.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.164-172
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• 2002

The role of botulinum toxin as a therapeutic agent is expanding rapidly in otolaryngology. Botulinum toxin is a protease that blocks the release of acetylcholine from nerve terminals. Its effects are transient and nondestructive, and largely limited to the area in which it is administered These effects are also graded according to the dose, allowing for individualized treatment of patients and disorders. Botulinum toxin has been used primarily to treat disorders of excessive or inappropriate muscle contraction. In the field of otolaryngology, these include spasmodic dysphonia, oromandibular dystonia, and blepharospasm, vocal tics and stuttering, cricopharyngeal achalasia, various tremors and tics, hemifacial spasm, temporomandibular joint disorders and a number of cosmetic applications. Botulinum toxin treatment has recently begun to show some benefit in the control of pain from migraine and tension headache. It may also prove useful in the control of autonomic dysfunction, as in Frey syndrome, sialorrhea, and rhinorrhea. In over 20 yews of use in humans, botulinum toxin has accumulated a considerable safety record, and in many cases represents relief for thousands of patients unaided by other therapy.