• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.125-135
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• 2017

The current study examines PCC (percentage of correct consonant), speech intelligibility, and oral motor function between the group of typically developing children and the group of children with Down's syndrome. To 15 children with Down's syndrome (mean CA: 9;7) and 15 typically developing children on receptive language age, the following tests were administered: K-WPPSI (2001), Picture Vocabulary Test (Kim et al., 1995), Oral and Speech Motor Control Protocol for total oral functional score (Robbins et al., 1987), DDK and Assessment of Phonology and Articulation for Children (APAC, Kim et al., 2007) for PCC and speech intelligibility. Pearson correlation coefficients were computed for the total oral functional score, PCC and DDK of each group. The statistical analysis showed that there is no significant difference in total functional score and DDK when IQ was controlled. There was a significant correlation between total oral functional score and PCC in the Down's syndrome group and a significant correlation between total oral functional score and intelligibility in the Down's syndrome group whether IQ was controlled or not. The findings suggest that both cognitive ability and overall oral motor function need to be considered for the intervention to enhance PCC or speech intelligibility of children with Down's syndrome.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.26
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• pp.509-533
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine the sociolinguistic competence of female marriage-immigrants through analyzing their free colloquial discourse. Because previous studies on female marriage-immigrants have not been performed based on the natural illocutionary data, an accurate diagnosis of their communication method will be necessary for the efficiency of the Korean education aimed at them, and for the development of their communication ability. For this study, the colloquial discourse situation from five female marriage-immigrants from China, the Philippines and Vietnam was recorded. The sociolinguistic characteristics were analyzed centering on the use of designation, respect terms, and regional words. 'Eomma' was used as a designation for their husband's mother, which means that 'intimacy' worked for the designation of their husband's mother. The respect-word classes for others were limited to the 'haeyo' form and the 'hae' one, and the reception for listeners was often discarded. In addition, the influence of regional words was found in the vocabulary and grammar, and the more proficient the Korean language, the more frequent the regional word occurrence. Based on the above result, the teaching method of Korean for the immigrants shall be suggested as follows: the teaching has to focus on respect words positively influencing the relationship with the counterpart.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.21-27
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• 1999

In this paper, we propose an improved MLP-based English pronunciation dictionary generator to apply to the variable vocabulary word recognizer. The variable vocabulary word recognizer can process any words specified in Korean word lexicon dynamically determined according to the current recognition task. To extend the ability of the system to task for English words, it is necessary to build a pronunciation dictionary generator to be able to process words not included in a predefined lexicon, such as proper nouns. In order to build the English pronunciation dictionary generator, we use context-dependent grapheme-to-phoneme multi-layer perceptron(MLP) architecture for each grapheme. To train each MLP, it is necessary to obtain grapheme-to-phoneme training data from general pronunciation dictionary. To automate the process, we use dynamic programming(DP) algorithm with some distance metrics. For training and testing the grapheme-to-phoneme MLPs, we use general English pronunciation dictionary with about 110 thousand words. With 26 MLPs each having 30 to 50 hidden nodes and the exception grapheme lexicon, we obtained the word accuracy of 72.8% for the 110 thousand words superior to rule-based method showing the word accuracy of 24.0%.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.5
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• pp.49-62
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• 1999

Education systems throughout the world encourage their students to learn languages other than their native one. In Australia, our Education Boards provide students with the opportunity to learn European and Asian languages. French, German, Chinese and Japanese are the most popular languages studied in elementary and high schools. This choice is a reflection of Australias European heritage and its geographical position near Asia. In most non-English speaking countries, English is the foreign language most readily available to students. In Korea, the English language is actively promoted by the Education Department and, in less official ways, by companies and the public. It is impossible to be anywhere in Korea without seeing the English language alongside or intermingled with Korean. When I ask students why they are learning English, I receive answers that include the word globalization and the importance of English throughout the world. When I press further and ask why they personally are learning English, the students mention passing exams, usually high school tests or TOEIC, and the necessity of passing the latter to obtain a good job. Seldom do I ever hear anything about communication: about the desire to talk with other people in English, to read novels or poetry in English, to understand movies or pop-songs in English, to chat on the Internet in English, to search for information on the Internet in English, or to email pen-pals in English. Yet isnt communication the only valid reason for learning a language? We learn our native language to communicate with those around us. Shouldnt we set the same goal for learning a foreign language? In my opinion communication, whether it is reading and writing or speaking and listening, must be central to language learning. Learning a language to pass examinations is meaningless unless those examinations are a reliable indicator of the ability of the student to communicate. In previous eras, most communication in a foreign language was through reading novels or formal letters. This required a thorough knowledge of grammar and a large vocabulary. Todays communication is much less formal. Telephone conversations, tele-conferences, faxes and emails allow people to communicate regularly and informally. Reading materials are also less formal as popular novels and newspapers are available world-wide. Movies and popular songs have added to the range of informal communication available. Finally travel has ensured that people from different cultures will meet easily and regularly. This informal communication requires less emphasis on grammar and vocabulary and more emphasis on comprehension and confidence to speak. Placing communication central to language learning has important implications for the Education system and for teachers.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.60 no.7
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• pp.227-231
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• 2017

Purpose: This study aimed to verify the safety of low-dose topiramate on language development in pediatric patients with migraine. Methods: Thirty newly diagnosed pediatric patients with migraine who needed topiramate were enrolled and assessed twice with standard language tests, including the Test of Language Problem Solving Abilities (TOPs), Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test, Urimal Test of Articulation and Phonology, and computerized speech laboratory analysis. Data were collected before treatment, and topiramate as monotherapy was sustained for at least 3 months. The mean follow-up period was $4.3{\pm}2.7months$. The mean topiramate dosage was 0.9 mg/kg/day. Results: The patient's mean age was $144.1{\pm}42.3months$ (male-to-female ratio, 9:21). The values of all the language parameters of the TOPs were not changed significantly after the topiramate treatment as follows: Determine cause, from $15.0{\pm}4.4$ to $15.4{\pm}4.8$ (P>0.05); making inference, from $17.6{\pm}5.6$ to $17.5{\pm}6.6$ (P>0.05); predicting, from $11.5{\pm}4.5$ to $12.3{\pm}4.0$ (P>0.05); and total TOPs score, from $44.1{\pm}13.4$ to $45.3{\pm}13.6$ (P>0.05). The total mean length of utterance in words during the test decreased from $44.1{\pm}13.4$ to $45.3{\pm}13.6$ (P<0.05). The Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test results decreased from $97.7{\pm}22.1$ to $96.3{\pm}19.9months$, and from $81.8{\pm}23.4$ to $82.3{\pm}25.4months$, respectively (P>0.05). In the articulation and phonology validation in both groups, speech pitch and energy were not significant, and all the vowel test results showed no other significant values. Conclusion: No significant difference was found in the language-speaking ability between the patients; however, the number of vocabularies used decreased. Therefore, topiramate should be used cautiously for children with migraine.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.165-173
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• 1998

Objectives：This study was conducted to compare the cognitive characteristics and visual-motor coordination ability of children with Asperger’s disorder and with those of children with PDD NOS. Methods：27 children(13 in AS group and 14 in PDD NOS group) were individually assessed using the K-WISC and BGT, and the results of those tests were analyzed. Results：The mean FSIQ of the AS group was significantly higher than that of the PDD NOS group. There was also a large discrepancy between VIQ and PIQ in the PDD NOS, while there was not significant discrepancy in the AS. The AS was distinguished from PDD NOS group by significantly higher scores in Vocabulary and Comprehension subscales and lower score in Block design. Also, when compared with the PDD NOS, the AS showed more difficulties in visual-motor coordination. Conclusion：The AS showed relatively good verbal and learning ability, while the PDD NOS relatively superior ability in visuospatial function and visual-motor coordination. The findings indicated that the K-WISC and BGT might be useful assessment tool to differentiate the AS from PDD NOS.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.541-554
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• 2012

This study suggests the effectiveness of G-learning English afterschool classes implemented to elementary school students at low achievement level in English. These days, the use of games in teaching and learning, known as G-learning, has gradually expanded, so it is necessary to consider how to adapt G-learning generally in English education. A G-learning afterschool English class was implemented to 23 low-level 5th grade students in an elementary school located in Daejon for 12 weeks. This study set two hypotheses aiming to determine the effectiveness in achievement and affectiveness of the participants. Pre and post achievement tests were conducted. Also, survey and FGI (focused group interview) were carried out twice with the participants. The study found that students' spelling awareness, vocabulary recognition and dialogue comprehension ability (hypothesis 1) were all improved with statistical significance. Moreover, after the class, participants' confidence and interest toward English study showed meaningful increases.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.12
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• pp.235-241
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• 2017

The Effects of the Story Character Phonics on Preschoolers' Early Reading Abilities and Affective Domains The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the story character phonics on preschoolers' early reading abilities (phonemic awareness and phonics abilities) and their affective domains. 24 participants in the present study were seven years old, and they were divided into two different groups at S kindergarten in Chungnam. There were 12 preschoolers in the experimental group with the story character phonics, and 12 preschoolers in the control group learned English by the story phonics focusing on phonemic awareness and vocabulary for 6 weeks. The results were as follows: First, the story character phonics was more effective in improving the preschoolers' early reading abilities than using the story phonics. Secondly, the story character phonics had some positive effects on the preschoolers' affective domains. This study proved that practicing with the story character phonics is more effective for preschoolers to develop their early reading abilities of English and their affective domains.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.9 no.7
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• pp.2633-2648
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• 2015

The problem of visual words' synonymy and ambiguity always exist in the conventional bag of visual words (BoVW) model based object category methods. Besides, the noisy visual words, so-called "visual stop-words" will degrade the semantic resolution of visual dictionary. In view of this, a novel bag of visual words method based on PLSA and chi-square model for object category is proposed. Firstly, Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (PLSA) is used to analyze the semantic co-occurrence probability of visual words, infer the latent semantic topics in images, and get the latent topic distributions induced by the words. Secondly, the KL divergence is adopt to measure the semantic distance between visual words, which can get semantically related homoionym. Then, adaptive soft-assignment strategy is combined to realize the soft mapping between SIFT features and some homoionym. Finally, the chi-square model is introduced to eliminate the "visual stop-words" and reconstruct the visual vocabulary histograms. Moreover, SVM (Support Vector Machine) is applied to accomplish object classification. Experimental results indicated that the synonymy and ambiguity problems of visual words can be overcome effectively. The distinguish ability of visual semantic resolution as well as the object classification performance are substantially boosted compared with the traditional methods.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.91-115
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a writing program and the type of picture book used on the early stages of writing and creative writing in young children. The different stages of writing amongst young children was divided into an early stage of writing for pre-schoolers and creative writing for spontaneous expression and problem solving. The subjects comprised 36 children aged 5 from a child daycare center in Seoul. Among the KISE-BAAT and Creative tests, the writing test and creative writing test were used. The early stage of writing and creative writing were both analyzed by means of both ANCOVA and T-test. Firstly, in the subscale of the early stage of writing(ability to mark, use vocabulary, create sentences and text construction), the early stage writing of the experiment group scored higher than that of the comparison group. Secondly, in terms of the type of picture books, the group using informational picture books had greater effects on the early stage of writing than the group using narrative picture books. Thirdly, the writing program itself had a positive effect on creative writing. In the subscale of creative writing (fluency, flexibility, novelty), the group using informational picture books made greater progress in fluency and novelty than the group using narrative picture books.