The Relation of Speech-Sound Discrimination to Developing Speech

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-58
Author(s):  
Michael Beaken
Keyword(s):  
Speech Sound ◽  
Auditory Discrimination ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Language Recognition ◽  
Sound Discrimination

Articulation and discrimination of speech-sounds are closely related in children's developing phonology. As in most other areas of language, recognition of a meaningful contrast is acknowledged to precede its active use (Ervin-Tripp, 1966: 59; Friedlander, 1969). It is becoming clear that the process of developing auditory discrimination follows the same general path as developing articulation in speech, though parallels between the two processes are not exact.

Speech-Sound Discrimination Skills as Measured by Reaction Time for Normal and Articulatory Defective Speaking Children

1972 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 595-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick F. Weiner ◽  
Mervyn L. Falk
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Auditory Discrimination ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Sound Discrimination ◽  
Normal Speaking ◽  
Nonsense Syllables

Reaction time measures were obtained from 30 normal speaking children and 30 articulatory defective children on a task which required determining similarities or differences between speech sounds presented in nonsense syllables. The results showed that there was no significant difference between these groups in the time needed to make the discriminations. These results are in opposition to the findings of various authors who have concluded that children with articulation deficits also demonstrate some type of auditory discrimination deficit.

Relationship between Two Nontraditional Procedures for Assessing Speech-Sound Discrimination

1989 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 499-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas G. Bountress ◽  
Joseph C. Sever ◽  
Joyce T. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Special Educators ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Reading Specialists ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Aged Population ◽  
The Past ◽  
Sound Discrimination

Tests of speech-sound discrimination are used by special educators, reading specialists and speech-language pathologists in assessing children's ability to differentiate between speech sounds occurring in standard English. Such tests are important in determining if speech-sound articulation errors are caused by difficulty in making such differentiations. However, during the past 10 years, these tests have been criticized on the basis of their reliability and validity. The purpose of this study was to examine the use of two alternative methods of assessing speech-sound discrimination with a school-aged population to determine if they elicited responses in a similar manner.

Administration and Socioeconomic Level Effects on Auditory Discrimination of Elementary School Children

1981 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 591-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Kerr ◽  
Clement P. Meunier
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Elementary School Children ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Age Effect ◽  
Auditory Discrimination ◽  
Socioeconomic Level ◽  
Discrimination Test ◽  
Low Socioeconomic ◽  
Discrimination Ability ◽  
Sound Discrimination

A 40-item speech sound discrimination test was administered to 158 children to assess the effects of socioeconomic level and administrative mode, oral or tape, on auditory discrimination ability. Results indicated a model of administration effect, age effect, and an interaction between age and socioeconomic level. Individual oral administration produced substantially fewer errors than a standardized tape. Low socioeconomic-level children made significantly fewer error scores as age increased, while mid-socioeconomic status children did not. All results were consistent across oral and tape administration.

Variables Influencing Performance on Speech-Sound Discrimination Tests

1974 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur H. Schwartz ◽  
Ronald Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Background Noise ◽  
Paired Comparison ◽  
Stimulus Item ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Item Presentation ◽  
Phonetic Cues ◽  
Sound Discrimination

Stimulus items were presented in three different contexts and under two different listening conditions to a total of 72 nursery, kindergarten, and first-grade children divided into equally sized groups on the basis of age. Results indicated that both the context of stimulus item presentation and the presence of background noise affected accuracy of performance. Children in all three groups consistently made more errors in the context using limited grammatical and phonetic cues. Noise disrupted performance in all contexts, but the greatest disruption occurred in the paired-comparison context. It appeared that contexts employing grammatical cues were more resistant to disruption from background noise. The results of this investigation also indicated that the performance of young children may have been affected by factors other than their ability to discriminate speech sounds.

scholarly journals Speech Sound Discrimination by Mongolian Gerbils

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolin Juechter ◽  
Rainer Beutelmann ◽  
Georg M. Klump
Keyword(s):  
Speech Sound ◽  
Meriones Unguiculatus ◽  
Suitable Model ◽  
Mongolian Gerbils ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
Perceptual Maps ◽  
Sound Discrimination

The present study establishes the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus) as a model for investigating the perception of human speech sounds. We report data on the discrimination of logatomes (CVCs - consonant-vowel-consonant combinations with outer consonants /b/, /d/, /s/ and /t/ and central vowels /a/, /aː/, /ɛ/, /eː/, /ɪ/, /iː/, /ɔ/, /oː/, /ʊ/ and /uː/, VCVs - vowel-consonant-vowel combinations with outer vowels /a/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ and central consonants /b/, /d/, /f/, /g/, /k/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /p/, /s/, /t/ and /v/) by young gerbils. Four young gerbils were trained to perform an oddball target detection paradigm in which they were required to discriminate a deviant CVC or VCV in a sequence of CVC or VCV standards, respectively. The experiments were performed with an ICRA-1 noise masker with speech-like spectral properties, and logatomes of multiple speakers were presented at various signal-to-noise ratios. Response latencies were measured to generate perceptual maps employing multidimensional scaling, which visualize the gerbils' internal representations of the sounds. The dimensions of the perceptual maps were correlated to multiple phonetic features of the speech sounds for evaluating which features of vowels and consonants are most important for the discrimination. The perceptual representation of vowels and consonants in gerbils was similar to that of humans, although gerbils needed higher signal-to-noise ratios for the discrimination of speech sounds than humans. The gerbils' discrimination of vowels depended on differences in the frequencies of the first and second formant determined by tongue height and position. Consonants were discriminated based on differences in combinations of their articulatory features. The similarities in the perception of logatomes by gerbils and humans renders the gerbil a suitable model for human speech sound discrimination.

scholarly journals Repeated Parental Singing During Kangaroo Care Improved Neural Processing of Speech Sound Changes in Preterm Infants at Term Age

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaisamari Kostilainen ◽  
Eino Partanen ◽  
Kaija Mikkola ◽  
Valtteri Wikström ◽  
Satu Pakarinen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Preterm Infants ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Intervention Group ◽  
Oddball Paradigm ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Emotional Speech ◽  
Kangaroo Care ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Sound Discrimination

Preterm birth carries a risk for adverse neurodevelopment. Cognitive dysfunctions, such as language disorders may manifest as atypical sound discrimination already in early infancy. As infant-directed singing has been shown to enhance language acquisition in infants, we examined whether parental singing during skin-to-skin care (kangaroo care) improves speech sound discrimination in preterm infants. Forty-five preterm infants born between 26 and 33 gestational weeks (GW) and their parents participated in this cluster-randomized controlled trial (ClinicalTrials ID IRB00003181SK). In both groups, parents conducted kangaroo care during 33–40 GW. In the singing intervention group (n = 24), a certified music therapist guided parents to sing or hum during daily kangaroo care. In the control group (n = 21), parents conducted standard kangaroo care and were not instructed to use their voices. Parents in both groups reported the duration of daily intervention. Auditory event-related potentials were recorded with electroencephalogram at term age using a multi-feature paradigm consisting of phonetic and emotional speech sound changes and a one-deviant oddball paradigm with pure tones. In the multi-feature paradigm, prominent mismatch responses (MMR) were elicited to the emotional sounds and many of the phonetic deviants in the singing intervention group and in the control group to some of the emotional and phonetic deviants. A group difference was found as the MMRs were larger in the singing intervention group, mainly due to larger MMRs being elicited to the emotional sounds, especially in females. The overall duration of the singing intervention (range 15–63 days) was positively associated with the MMR amplitudes for both phonetic and emotional stimuli in both sexes, unlike the daily singing time (range 8–120 min/day). In the oddball paradigm, MMRs for the non-speech sounds were elicited in both groups and no group differences nor connections between the singing time and the response amplitudes were found. These results imply that repeated parental singing during kangaroo care improved auditory discrimination of phonetic and emotional speech sounds in preterm infants at term age. Regular singing routines can be recommended for parents to promote the development of the auditory system and auditory processing of speech sounds in preterm infants.

scholarly journals Tempo of Spectrum Change as a Cue in Speech-Sound Discrimination by Infants

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Hillenbrand ◽  
Fred D. Minifie ◽  
Thomas J. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Speech Sound ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Head Turn ◽  
Transition Duration ◽  
Formant Transition ◽  
Background Stimulus ◽  
Discrimination Procedure ◽  
Spectrum Change ◽  
Modification Technique ◽  
Sound Discrimination

Six- to seven-month-old infants were tested on their ability to discriminate among three speech sounds which differed on the basis of formant-transition duration, a major cue to distinctions among stop, semivowel and diphthong classes. The three speech sounds, [bε], [wε], and [uε] were produced in two different ways. The stimuli for one experiment were two-formant synthetic tokens which differed in formant-transition duration. The stimuli for a second experiment were produced with a computer-modification technique which artificially shortened or lengthened the formant-transition portion of a naturally produced [wɛ], resulting in tokens of [bɛ] and [uɛ]. The discrimination procedure involved visual reinforcement of a head-turn response following a change from a repeating background stimulus to a contrasting stimulus. Infants in both experiments discriminated [bɛ] from both [wɛ] and [uɛ]; evidence for [wε]-[uɛ] discrimination was obtained for the “computer modified” tokens only. These findings are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms underlying speech perception in infancy.

Distinctive Phonetic Features as Relevant and Irrelevant Stimulus Dimensions in Speech-Sound Discrimination Learning

1974 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-425
Author(s):  
Stuart I. Ritterman ◽  
Nancy C. Freeman
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Discrimination Learning ◽  
Irrelevant Dimension ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Irrelevant Stimulus ◽  
Relevant Dimension ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
Sound Discrimination ◽  
Nonsense Syllables

Thirty-two college students were required to learn the relevant dimension in each of two randomized lists of auditorily presented stimuli. The stimuli consisted of seven pairs of CV nonsense syllables differing by two relevant dimension units and from zero to seven irrelevant dimension units. Stimulus dimensions were determined according to Saporta’s units of difference. No significant differences in performance as a function of number of the irrelevant dimensions nor characteristics of the relevant dimension were observed.

Easy Screening for Mild Alzheimer's Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment from Elderly Speech

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shohei Kato ◽  
Akira Homma ◽  
Takuto Sakuma
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Characteristic Curve ◽  
Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients

Objective: This study presents a novel approach for early detection of cognitive impairment in the elderly. The approach incorporates the use of speech sound analysis, multivariate statistics, and data-mining techniques. We have developed a speech prosody-based cognitive impairment rating (SPCIR) that can distinguish between cognitively normal controls and elderly people with mild Alzheimer's disease (mAD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) using prosodic signals extracted from elderly speech while administering a questionnaire. Two hundred and seventy-three Japanese subjects (73 males and 200 females between the ages of 65 and 96) participated in this study. The authors collected speech sounds from segments of dialogue during a revised Hasegawa's dementia scale (HDS-R) examination and talking about topics related to hometown, childhood, and school. The segments correspond to speech sounds from answers to questions regarding birthdate (T1), the name of the subject's elementary school (T2), time orientation (Q2), and repetition of three-digit numbers backward (Q6). As many prosodic features as possible were extracted from each of the speech sounds, including fundamental frequency, formant, and intensity features and mel-frequency cepstral coefficients. They were refined using principal component analysis and/or feature selection. The authors calculated an SPCIR using multiple linear regression analysis. Conclusion: In addition, this study proposes a binary discrimination model of SPCIR using multivariate logistic regression and model selection with receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and reports on the sensitivity and specificity of SPCIR for diagnosis (control vs. MCI/mAD). The study also reports discriminative performances well, thereby suggesting that the proposed approach might be an effective tool for screening the elderly for mAD and MCI.

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