• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.85-94
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• 2015

This study is to investigate the characteristic of tonal elements in word utterance of 30 pre-school children. For the analyses, 240 utterances of 4 syllable words were processed to extract acoustic values and then the data was transformed into tonal height in order to examine the contour. The results show that the mean pitch of a note is $C4{\frac{1}{2}}(271.17Hz)$ and high and low pitched notes are $C5{\frac{1}{2}}(452.57Hz)$ and $G{\sharp}3{\frac{1}{2}}(192.54Hz)$. The pitch patterns of the 4 syllables measured at the frication and aspiration portion are $E4{\frac{1}{2}}-F4-B3{\frac{1}{2}}-A3$ and F4-E4-B3-A3. The pitch patterns of consonant clusters are $B3{\frac{1}{2}}-D4-B3{\frac{1}{2}}-A3{\frac{1}{2}}$ and $A{\sharp}3{\frac{1}{2}}-C4-A3-D4{\frac{1}{2}}$. The analyses of tonal elements in this study provide evidentiary data on tonal height helpful for developing melodic contour.

• Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-18
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• 2017

The relationships between the ability to understand changes in meaning depending on the prosody of spoken words and the ability to perceive pitch and melodic contour in cochlear implants (CI) recipients were examined. Fifteen postlingual CI recipients were measured in terms of speech prosody perception, speech perception, pitch discrimination (PD), and melody contour identification (MCI). The speech prosody perception test consists of words with positive (PW) and neutral meaning (NW). Participants were asked to identify the meaning of words depending on the conditions of positive and negative prosody. The MCI consists of subtests 1 and 2 with different chance levels to choose. Then, the relationships between speech prosody perception, speech perception, PD, and MCI performance were analyzed. There was a significant difference in identifying the meaning of words expressed in a different prosody between the PW and NW conditions. Speech prosody perception showed a significant correlation with MCI 1 while there was no significant relationship with speech perception. Although speech perception may be possible after CI, limited spoken word comprehension due to decreased sensitivity for prosodic changes may persist in CI recipients. In addition, there was a limitation in perception of melodic contour change compared to pitch discrimination, which is related to speech prosody perception.

• 재활복지
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.165-186
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to compare adults' with intellectual disabilities voice pitch between who have choir experiences and those who do not. Participants were a total of 21 male adults with intellectual disabilities (12 choir group members and 9 non-choir group). Praat test was conducted to compare the characteristics of pitch, produced by the participants while they were singing in their comfortable pitch range. The results showed that the range of melodic contour in the choir group was broader and higher than those of the non choir group. Participants in the choir group produced a lower pitch in the beginning note, and they produced a higher pitch compared to the non-choir group on the highest and lowest note of the song. An analysis on the pitch of the individual note that the participants produced revealed a gap between the expected pitch notes and the actual notes produced while singing. In all syllables of the song, participants in the choir group showed higher accuracy of the pitch production, and significantly more accurate on the perfect fifth and eighth intervals. Regarding to the relative pitch, participants in the choir group produced significantly more accurate notes on perfect fifth, perfect fourth, and perfect eighth intervals. Findings of the study suggest that constant singing experience enable them to have pitch training. It also implies for further studies regarding to singing abilities of adults with intellectual disabilities.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to examine how a singing program using self-voice monitoring for children with cochlear implants (CI) influences on the intonation and the accuracy of pitch production. To verify and estimate the effectiveness, a program was conducted with participants of 7 prelingual CI users, whose aged between 4 years and 7 years. The program adopted three stages from the self-voice monitoring: Listen, Explore, and Reproduce (LER stage). All participants received 8 singing sessions over 8 weeks, including pre-test, intervention, and post-test. For the pre and post-test, participants' singing of an excerpt of a song "happy birthday" and speaking three assertive sentences and three interrogative sentences were recorded and analyzed in terms of the intonation slopes at the end of the sentences and the melodic contour. From the sentence speeches, we found that the intonation slopes of the interrogative sentences significantly improved as they showed similar patterns with that of the average normal hearing group. Also, in regard to singing, we observed that the melody contour had progressed, as well as the range of pitch production had extended. The positive result from the intervention indicates that the singing program was effective for children with CI to develop the intonation skill and accuracy of pitch production.