• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.335-345
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• 2013

The present study investigates the effect of the inter-aural level difference(ILD) on the syllable articulation test in classrooms which can be occurred by the absorption of interior surfaces. In order to do this, the sound absorbing materials were installed in the classroom and sound pressure level(SPL) at each ear was measured using binaural recording systems. Also, syllable articulation tests were carried out at a classroom with and without sound absorption materials by 20 students who have normal hearing condition, in order to investigates the effect of the ILD on the speech intelligibility. As a result, it was found that the larger inter-aural level differences was occurred at the nearer positions to lateral walls after sound absorptions were applied to lateral walls in the classroom. At some places, the measured ILD was lager than JND of sound level (3dB). Also, it was shown that the correlation coefficient of inter-aural level difference with the score of syllable test has the significant result(-0.441). Thus, It is concluded that ILD can affect the subjective speech intelligibility in classrooms.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.95-101
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• 2014

This paper investigated the effects of frequency band limitation on perceptual characteristics of Korean consonants. Monosyllabic speech (144 syllables of CV type, 56 syllables of VC type, 8 syllables of V type) produced by two announcers were low- and high-pass filtered with cutoff frequencies ranging from 300 to 5000 Hz. Six listeners with normal hearing performed perception test by types of filter and cutoff frequencies. We reported phoneme recognition rates and types of perception error of band-limited Korean consonants to examine how frequency distortion in the process of speech transmission affect listener's perception. The results showed that recognition rates varied with the following factors: position in a syllable, manner of articulation, place of articulation, and phonation types. Consonants in the final position were stronger to the frequency band limitation than those in the initial position. Fricatives and Affricates are stronger than stops. Fortis consonants were less stronger than their lenis or aspirated counterparts. Types of perception error also varied depending on such factors as consonant's place of articulation: In case of bilabial stops, they were perceived as alveolar stops with while in cases of alveolar and velar stops, there were changes in phonation types without any change in the place of articulation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.53-66
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• 2018

This study investigated the development of English phonological awareness in preschool children based on a longitudinal study. It carried out a phonological matching task, mispronunciation task, articulation test, explicit phoneme awareness task, rhyme matching task, and initial-phoneme matching task for three-, four- and five-year-old children. A letter knowledge test was also added to the tests for the 5-year-old children. The results revealed that the development of phonological awareness follows a progression of syllable, then onset and rhyme, then phoneme. It was also revealed that language skills such as vocabulary, detection of mispronunciations, and articulation were partially related to the development of phoneme awareness. Finally, we also found that letter knowledge partially affected the children's development of phonological awareness.

• MALSORI
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• no.21_24
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• pp.3-24
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• 1992

This study was designed to investigate the changes of phonological processes in normal Korean children aged from 2- to 6-years. Forty eight children who lived in Seoul or Kyung-Ki do were tested with a picture articulation test and their articulation errors including omissions, additions and substitutions were coded into phonological processes. Those phonological processes were discussed in several ways: syllable structure, place, manner, assimilation, tenseness, and aspiration of sounds. Data were analyzed by two ways: (1) number of subjects who showed each process and (2) percentage of occurrence of each process. Analyses in omission-addition processes demonstrated that postvocalic omission occurred most frequently, followed by velar-, alveolar-, and glottal omission. Analyses in substitution processes showed that fronting (palatal and velar), backing (alveolar), and alveolization occurred most frequently in terms of the place of sounds. In terms of assimilation, alveolar-, stopping, and aspiration assimilation occurred frequently. Analyses by the tenseness and aspiration showed similar occurrences among the 4 processes, with slightly higher occurrences in tensing and aspiration than lanxing and deaspiration. All of the processes decreased by age. The numbers of the processes showed by more than half of the children or exceeded 10％ of occurrence were 20 in 2-years of age, 10 in 3-years of age, 1 in 4-years of age, and none in ages of 5 and 6.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.181-189
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• 2011

The present study aimed to determine the phonological errors of children in Korean-Vietnamese speaking multicultural families through comparison analyses with those of Korean monolingual peers with phonological disorders. The subjects were 38 children aged about 4-6 years. To examine phonological errors, the Urimal Test of Articulation and Phonation (words) was used. Performances were analyzed by frequency. The results showed some differences between the two groups. There was a tendency for children in Korean-Vietnamese speaking multicultural families to show a higher frequency of phonological errors than Korean monolingual children with phonological disorders. However, the former showed lower error percentages in a few error patterns than the latter such as syllable final consonant deletion, showing similar patterns to those of the normal children. They also showed very unique error patterns such as the highest error percentage in palatal affricates. It remains to be seen if these error patterns are just delay in acquisition or phonological disorders.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.103-116
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• 2008

Cerebral palsy children represent abnormal vocalization pattern caused by respiration problem and paralyzed oral motor muscle that are the basics of speech production. Thus, this study examined the effect of respiration and articulator training programs on the basic ability of speech production in CP children. The subjects of this study were 4 children with 3 of spastic CP and 1 of ataxia CP. The respiration and articulator program was conducted in 30 sessions for 30 minutes each. Pre-test was administered twice before the program, ongoing test was administered every 5 session during the period of experiment, and post-test was administered twice. The program included speech production such as respiration training, lips, jaw, cheek, and tongue exercise, and velopharyngeal training, and related articulator training. The following results were obtained. First, all subject children were less than 5 seconds in maximum phonation time before the experiment and 2 were improved by more than 4$\sim$5 seconds during the experiment, but 2 had relatively low rising width. Second, while children with less than 30dB before the experiment became bigger in strength during the experiment, children with more than 35dB before the experiment showed a minor change. Subject child 4 had lower vocal strength in the post-test period. Finally, although each subject had individual difference in syllable diadochokinetic ability, the function was improved and the number of repetition in one respiration was also increased.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.73-79
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• 2014

Alveolar fricative sounds /s/ and /s'/ are learned last for normal children in the speech development process for Koreans. These are especially difficult to articulate for hearing-impaired children often causing articulation errors. The acoustic phonetic evaluation uses testing tools to provide indirect and object information. These objective resources can be compared with standardized resources on speech when interpreting the results of a test. However, most previous studies in Korea did not consider acoustic studies that used the spectrum moment values of hearing-impaired children. Therefore, this study was conducted to compare the characteristics of hearing-impaired children's pronunciation of fricative sounds using spectrum moment values. For this purpose, the study selected a total of 10 hearing-impaired children (5 boys and 5 girls) currently in 3rd or 5th grade and attending one of the elementary schools in Seoul or Gyeonggi-do. For the selection process, their age, type of hearing aid, implantation of hearing aid (CI) before two years of age, hearing capacity (dB) before and after wearing the hearing aid, duration of speech rehabilitation, and time of learning alveolar fricative sounds were all considered. Also, 10 normal children (5 boys and 5 girls) were selected among 3rd or 5th grade students attending one of the elementary schools in Seoul or Gyeonggi-do. The subjects were asked to read the carrier sentence, "I say _______," including a list of 12 meaningless syllables composed of CV and VCV syllables, including alveolar fricative sounds /s/ and /s'/ and vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/. The recorded resources were processed through the Time-frequency Analysis Software Program to measure M1 (mean), M2 (variance), M3 (skewness), and M4 (kurtosis) of the fricative noise. No significant differences were found when comparing spectrum threshold values in the acoustic phonetic characteristics of hearing-impaired children and normal children in alveolar fricative sound pronunciation according to vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/, alveolar fricative sounds /s/ and /s'/, and syllable structure (CV, VCV) other than, for M3 in the comparison of groups according to disability. In the comparison of syllable structures, there were statistically significant differences in M1, M2, M3, and M4 with clinical significance. However, there was no significant difference in results when comparing the alveolar fricative sounds according to the vowels.