• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.129-138
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• 2012

Reading fluency is an important variable in reading comprehension. However, a limited number of studies on reading fluency are available in Korea. The purpose of this study is to review the articles about reading fluency during last 10 years and to present a direction for future research. Forty research papers from the Journal of Learning Disabilities and Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools were selected from 2002 to 2012. These papers were analyzed in terms of their subjects and research methods. About 64% of the articles focused on typically developing children and children with dyslexia. About 67% of the research consisted of descriptive studies. Based on these results, suggestions were made for future research on reading fluency.

• Dementia and Neurocognitive Disorders
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2022

Background and Purpose: Verbal and nonverbal fluency tests are the conventional methods for examining executive function in the elderly population. However, differences in impairments result in fluency tests in patients with mild cognitive impairments (MCIs) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and in neural correlates underlying the tests still necessitate concrete evidence. Methods: We compared the test performances in 27 normal controls, 28 patients with MCI, and 20 with AD, and investigated morphological changes in association with the test performances using structural magnetic imaging. Results: Patients with AD performed poorly across all the fluency tests, and a receiver operating characteristics curve analysis revealed that only category fluency test discriminated all the 3 groups. Association, category, and design fluency tests involved temporal and frontal regions, while letter fluency involved the cerebellum and caudate. Conclusions: Category fluency is a reliable measure for screening patients with AD and MCI, and this efficacy might be related to morphological correlates that underlie semantic and executive processing.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.163-168
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• 2009

This study investigated the determination of speech rates, words per minute (WPM) and syllables per minute (SPM), of $5{\sim}7$ year-old normal children to understand if there are any differences in the rates according to the children's age and sex. All participants were required to conduct story retelling tasks (SRT) and picture description tasks (PDT). In SRT, there was a significant difference between the groups of 5 year-old and 7 year-old children on WPM. However, there was no significant difference between the groups of ages regarding SPM. In addition, there was no significant difference between the groups according to sex on WPM and SPM. In PDT, there was no significant difference between the groups according to their ages and sex on WPM and SPM. The current research found that the speech rates of the preschool children might be somewhat different in their utterance abilities according to their age, but there was no obvious difference according to their sex. The findings can advance development of a clinical tool to screen children with fluency disorders and to determine the steps in establishing speech rates of children in the language development period.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.221-232
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• 2007

Topiramate (TPM) is a new antiepileptic drug characterized by a clinical effective reduction in seizure frequency and it represents a useful drug effective in a wide range of epileptic patients. Known side effects are represented by weight loss, hypohidrosis, anorexia, sedation, nephrolithiasis, cognitive complaints and language disorders. This study is to examine acoustic characteristics of patients with TPM. 15 patients were assessed through a Computerized Speech Lab (CSL) applied before the beginning of therapy with TPM and 3 months after medication had been stabilized. Tests had been chosen to assess voice onset time (VOT), total duration (TD), vowel formants, loudness, pitch, speaking rate, and articulation patterns. We compared the data from patients and healthy volunteers. The statistical analysis of the results did not show changes in acoustic tests, except for TD which was increased. The increase of the TD is evaluated as a deterioration of fluency. Our results suggest that patients with TPM did not experience acoustic speech changes except that fluency was declined. Unlike previous studies, the medication of TPM has nothing to do with speech problems in patients with epilepsy.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.143-149
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• 2024

Objectives: This study aimed to identify the effectiveness of treatment programs for children with reading (RD) or mathematics disorders (MD). Structured treatment programs were developed to improve phonological awareness and number sense among children and adolescents with RD or MD, respectively, and the effectiveness of the learning disorder treatment programs were evaluated. Methods: We used standardized, objective diagnostic, and evaluation tools not only to recruit participants with RD, MD, or comorbid attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, but also to assess the effectiveness of the treatments regarding both improved core neurocognitive deficits of RD or MD and academic achievement. Forty children with RD or MD received one-on-one treatments from therapists. Results: In the RD group, treatment effects were observed in all subtests. In the word and paragraph reading tests, the accuracy rates and fluency improved. The results of the phonological working memory test, word-sound correspondence test, and rapid automatic naming tests also improved. In the MD group, the accuracy rate and fluency on the arithmetic test improved. An increase in the accuracy rate in the size and distance comparison tests and a decrease in the error rate in the estimation test were also observed. However, there were no improvements in reaction time in these subtests. Conclusion: Learning disorder treatment programs that focus on improving phonological awareness or number sense in children with RD or MD improved achievement, phonological awareness, and number sense.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.318-326
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• 2011

With the increase of senior population, adults in their manhood and senescence with neurogenic defects also increase as well; thus, it is necessary to conduct foundational research on speech fluency to rehabilitate adults with neurogenic language disorders. Thereupon, this study analyzes the characteristics of speech fluency comparatively by age and sex with the subjects of normal adults in their 50's to 70's. According to the result of collecting language samples from total 90 adults, 30 (15 males, 15 females) in each age group of the 50's, 60's, and 70's and comparing the speech rate and disfluency frequency, first, adults in their 70's showed slower speech rate than those in their 50's or 60's. And those in their 50's, 60's, and 70's indicated no difference in their speech rate by sex. Second, there was no difference in normal disfluency and total disfluency among the adults in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. Also, there was no difference among the age groups by sex, either. Third, there was no correlation between speech rate of all the age groups and disfluency frequency.

• Dementia and Neurocognitive Disorders
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.85-85
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• 2023

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Cognitive Science Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.125-130
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• 2006

원활한 의사소통을 위해서는 문장들을 연결하여 흐름을 조직하고 말로 산출하고 전체적인 의미를 파악할 수 있어야 한다. 이야기는 이러한 문장들이 연결되어있는 것으로, 종속적이거나 나열적인 이야기 특성은 의사소통장애인의 이야기 이해와 산출의 수행에 영향을 미칠 수 있다. 본 연구에서는 이야기 특성에 따른 유창성 실어증환자의 이야기 이해 및 산출의 능력을 알아보고, 이해과제 수행이 산출과제에 미치는 영향을 분석해보았다. 이야기 종류로는 시간적 나열 이야기와 인과적 관계 이야기, 유머가 있는 이야기를 사용하였으며, 사실적 정보, 텍스트 추론, 빠진 정보추론 등 세 가지의 이해과제를 통하여 이해 능력을 측정하였다. 산출능력은 이해과제 전과 후에 CIU 비율로 질적인 측면을 측정하고, 분당어절 수를 이용하여 양적인 측면을 분석하였다. 그 결과 이해측면은 세 가지 이야기 모두 사실적 정보에 대한 이해 능력이 상대적으로 좋았으며, 오류의 형태는 추론오류가 가장 많이 나타났다. 산출에서는 인과적 관계이야기에서의 CIU 비율이 가장 높았고, 이해과제 전, 후의 차이를 비교한 결과, CIU 비율은 변화하지 않았으나, 분당 어절수에서는 증가하고 있음을 보여주었다. 이야기의 종류에 따라서 유창성 실어증화자의 산출과제의 수행수준은 다르게 나타났다. 그리고 이해과제의 수행이 산출과제에서 양적인 증가는 가져왔으나 질적인 수준에는 아무런 영향을 미치지 않았다.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to compare disfluencies and speech rates (overall speech rate and articulation rate) of normal adult speakers who use the standard Korean according to dissimilar speech tasks (story-telling and text-reading). Participants were 100 Korean adult speakers. The results are summarized as follows: First, the most frequent type of disfluency in the story-telling task was 'interjection', whereas that in the text-reading task was 'revision'. Second, the overall speech rates (syllables per second and syllables per minute) showed significant differences depending on the speech tasks. Third, the articulation rates (syllables per second and syllables per minute) showed significant differences depending on the speech tasks.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.26-33
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• 2012

The animal naming test (ANT) is known to be influenced not only by age, gender, and education but only by ethnicity, culture, and language. Thus, population-specific norm considering these variables needs to be developed for Korean-speaking elderly. We evaluated 185 healthy elderly people with five measures. Education was the single statistically independent correlate of the total number of words ($R^2$ = .312, p = .038). After adjusting for education, there was slightly significant negative correlation (r = -.215, p = .049) between age and total number of words. Mean number of words produced was $13.71{\pm}3.09$. The production frequency was negatively correlated with the typicality rating (r = -0.41, p < .05). The concrete and exact scoring rule could be set up in the comparison of naming performance between a normal and patient with neuro-linguistic disorder and its data could be utilized in a differential diagnosis for patients with neurological disorders.