• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2024

This study aims to develop a three-sentence speech screening test to evaluate speech development in 4-year-old children and provide standards for comparison with peers. Screening tests were conducted on 24 children each in the first and second halves of 4 years old. The screening test results showed a correlation of .7 with the existing speech disorder evaluation test results. We compared whether there was a difference between the two groups of 4-year-old in the phonological development indicators and error patterns obtained through the screening test. The developmental indicators of the children in the second half were high, but there were no statistically significant differences. The Korean Speech Sound Analysis Tool (KSAT) was used for all analyses, and the automatic analysis results and contents of the clinician's manual analysis were compared. The degree of agreement between the automatic and manual error pattern analyses was 93.63%. The significance of this study is that the standard of speech of a 4-year-old child of the speech screening test according to three sentences at the level of elicited sentences, and the applicability of the KSAT were reviewed in both clinical and research fields.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.57-65
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• 2024

Normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) is a condition wherein the cerebrospinal pressure in the brain is within the normal range, but the cerebrospinal fluid increases above the normal level, causing ventriculomegaly. In patients with NPH, the articulatory system exhibits reduced mobility and range, which may affect diadochokinesis (DDK) and speech intelligibility. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of DDK, including accurate-token DDK and all-token DDK including inaccurate tokens, in patients with NPH and healthy elderly adults (HE). We also examined the classification accuracy of DDK between the two groups. Finally, we investigated whether there was a correlation between speech intelligibility and DDKs in the NPH group. The results showed that NPH and HE groups differed significantly in both accurate-token DDK and all-token DDK, and their classification accuracy was relatively high. However, there was no correlation between speech intelligibility and DDK. The findings suggest that the DDK is a useful method for sensitively assessing speech motor performance in patients with NPH.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.67-76
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• 2024

Recent advances in text-to-speech (TTS) technology have significantly improved the quality of synthesized speech, reaching a level where it can closely imitate natural human speech. Especially, TTS models offering various voice characteristics and personalized speech, are widely utilized in fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) tutors, advertising, and video dubbing. Accordingly, in this paper, we propose a one-shot multi-speaker TTS system that can ensure acoustic diversity and synthesize personalized voice by generating speech using unseen target speakers' utterances. The proposed model integrates a speaker encoder into a TTS model consisting of the FastSpeech2 acoustic model and the HiFi-GAN vocoder. The speaker encoder, based on the pre-trained RawNet3, extracts speaker-specific voice features. Furthermore, the proposed approach not only includes an English one-shot multi-speaker TTS but also introduces a Korean one-shot multi-speaker TTS. We evaluate naturalness and speaker similarity of the generated speech using objective and subjective metrics. In the subjective evaluation, the proposed Korean one-shot multi-speaker TTS obtained naturalness mean opinion score (NMOS) of 3.36 and similarity MOS (SMOS) of 3.16. The objective evaluation of the proposed English and Korean one-shot multi-speaker TTS showed a prediction MOS (P-MOS) of 2.54 and 3.74, respectively. These results indicate that the performance of our proposed model is improved over the baseline models in terms of both naturalness and speaker similarity.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.29-36
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• 2024

A speech processing model based on a psycholinguistic approach can identify the specific speech processing deficits of children with speech sound disorders (SSDs) through various pathways. In most cases, the cause of the speech problem with SSD children is unknown, so it is important to identify the underlying strengths and weaknesses for individualized intervention. In addition, because the native language deficits can also affect foreign language production, it is necessary to examine speech processing abilities between the two languages. This study is a preliminary study to develop a Korean-English speech processing task system. Speech production task and speech processing task (DT, PRT, NRT) were conducted both in Korean and English on 10 children with SSD and 20 normal children (NSA). As a result, the SSD group showed significantly lower production ability than the NSA group in both languages. As a result of the speech processing task, there was no significant difference in the discrimination task (DT), while there was a significant difference between language types in the phonological representation task (PRT) and between language types and groups in the nonword repetition task (NRT). The results of this study confirmed that children's native language and foreign language processing skills may be different, and that the sub-tasks of speech processing system should be further subdivided.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.37-47
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• 2024

This study was conducted on 27 male students majoring in or preparing for popular music vocals to determine whether they were aware of their voice classification and vocal range. Additionally, differences in the fundamental frequency and average speaking fundamental frequency were compared among the voice classifications. Moreover, considering that they may differ in their ability to produce high frequencies depending on the vowel, differences in voice ranges among the cardinal vowels, /a/, /i/, and /u/, were examined, and differences in voice ranges between vowels were compared by voice classification. The results showed that more than half of the male students majoring in or preparing for popular music vocals were not accurately aware of their voice types. In addition, statistically significant differences were found in the maximum fundamental frequency and frequency range among vowels, indicating differences in the voice range that can be produced depending on the vowel type. In particular, the voice range decreased in the following order: /a/>/u/>/i/. This suggests that while the vowel /a/ is easier to articulate in the high register compared to other vowels, vowels /u/ and /i/ as high vowels involve narrowing of the oral cavity due to the raised position of the tongue, accompanied by raising of the larynx, resulting in a decrease in voice range and difficulty in vocalizing in the high register.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.83-90
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• 2024

This study aimed to explore phonological retrieval and phonological memory skills in second to third graders with dyslexia, poor comprehension, and typical development. The participants included 17 children with dyslexia, 17 children with poor comprehension, and 24 typically developing children. Children with dyslexia scored below 85 on the word decoding test, poor comprehender scored above 90 on the word decoding, and below 85 on the reading comprehension test and typical children scored above 90 on both reading tests. All participants were assessed on rapid automatized naming (RAN) and nonword repetition (NWR). The result indicated that children with dyslexia performed significantly worse on RAN and NWR tasks than other groups. However, there was significant differences between poor comprehender and typically developing children. Furthermore, only RAN were significantly correlated with word decoding and reading comprehension in children with dyslexia. For typically developing children, RAN was correlated with word decoding and reading comprehension, while NWR had a significant correlation with reading comprehension. No correlations were found between these variables for poor comprehender. The finding suggests that children with dyslexia showed difficulties on phonological retrieval and phonological memory, which are essential for reading development while poor comprehender do not have difficulties with phonological processing skills. Phonological processing deficits may underlie word decoding difficulties in dyslexia.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.59-69
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• 2024

Due to differences in singing styles and voice production between classical and popular music singers, their knowledge and practice regarding vocal hygiene may differ. This study compared the knowledge and practice of vocal hygiene among 121 university undergraduate students (58 classical and 63 popular music vocal majors). Additionally, the correlation between the level of knowledge and practice of vocal hygiene and the subjective voice evaluation was examined. The results revealed that both knowledge and practice of vocal hygiene were significantly higher in classical than popular music vocal majors, and that vocal hygiene practice was significantly higher than knowledge in the entire group. In addition, there was a weak positive correlation between knowledge and practice of vocal hygiene; and a weak negative correlation between vocal hygiene practice and subjective voice evaluation. This study suggests that popular music vocal majors have relatively lower levels of knowledge and practice in vocal hygiene than classical music vocal majors. It also highlights the need to provide tailored vocal hygiene education programs for both classical and popular music vocal majors, as they show low levels of knowledge and practice in certain aspects of vocal hygiene.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.19-27
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• 2024

The Lombard effect is an involuntary response to speakers' experiences in the presence of noise during voice communication. This study aimed to investigate the Lombard effect by comparing the acoustic features of children and adults under different listening conditions. Twelve male children (5-9 years old) and 12 young adult men (24-35 years old) were recruited to produce speech under three different listening conditions (quiet, noise-55 dB, noise-70 dB). Acoustic analyses were then carried out to characterize their acoustic features, such as F0, intensity, duration, and vowel space area, under the three listening conditions. A Lombard effect was observed in the intensity and duration for children and adults who participated in this study under adverse listening conditions. However, we did not observe a Lombard effect in the F0 and vowel space areas of either group. These findings suggest that children can adjust their speech production in challenging listening conditions as much as adults.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.71-81
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• 2024

This study investigated the perceptions of military personnel toward stuttering and persons who stutter (PWS) using the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes of -Stuttering (POSHA-S). A total of 67 military personnel participated in the study (male: 58, female: 9, commissioned officers: 11, non-commissioned officers: 56, with an average age of 31.9 years and a standard deviation of 8.7), and the collected data were analyzed according to the guidelines provided by St. Louis. To compare the perceptions of military personnel toward stuttering and PWS, percentile ranks (%iles) relative to the global POSHA-S database, which were constructed from responses from a total of 20,941 participants from various cultural regions, countries, and groups (as of June 2023), were retrieved. Results showed that the overall stuttering score for military personnel was 7, corresponding to the 14 percentile in the POSHA-S database. In addition, the sub-score for ' self-reactions to PWS' was -11 (8 percentile in the POSHA-S database). These results revealed that military personnel hold more negative attitudes toward stuttering and PWS, overall. These findings emphasized the importance of addressing the lack of accurate information among military personnel, suggesting a need for educational programs mainly aimed at improving the understanding of stuttering and PWS within the military.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.99-109
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• 2024

Coarticulation is affected by the continuous movement of the articulator within a limited time and space through the neighboring segments and various overlaps. This study investigated the differences in coarticulation characteristics of children with reading disabilities and nondisabled children in CVC and VCV syllables consisted of stops, affricates, and vowels (a, i, u). The subjects were 13 children with reading disabilities and nondisabled children in the 2nd to 6th grades in elementary school. Two second formants were measured. One was measured at the point where the vowel began, and the other was measured at the mid point of the vowel stable section. Regression analysis was performed with F2 onset and F2 of the following vowel to obtain the locus equation (LE). 3-way ANOVA was conducted to the slope of the LE according to the groups (reading disabilities vs. nondisabled), places of articulation, and phonation types. In CVC syllable, dyslexic children showed a flatter slope than nondisabled children. With respect to the places of articulation, velar or bilabial sounds showed steeper LE slope than alveolar or palatal sounds. There were no main effects regarding group and phonation types variable for VCV syllable, and the significant differences in the places of articulation were also differed from the results for the CVC syllables. This study confirmed that dyslexic children showed a different pattern of coarticulation slope depending on the syllable structure. We also found that the higher pause rate of the dyslexic children had a stronger effect on the coarticulation in VCV structures.