A Minimal-Word-Pair Model for Teaching the Linguistic Significance of Distinctive Feature Properties

1981 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen E. Blache ◽  
Carl L. Parsons ◽  
Jean M. Humphreys

A word level behavioral routine for the remediation of distinctive feature errors was developed for resolving some current theoretical criticisms of minimal-pair therapy. Seven children with moderate to severe non-organic phonological disabilities were taught to correctly discriminate and produce sounds in words by utilizing lexical contrasts. A one-group pretest-posttest design was utilized to establish that the number and severity of the sound substitutions decreased with training. Phonemic improvement was demonstrated with as few as three minimal-pair-words. A paradigm is proffered for future development and explanation.

1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Baran ◽  
Harry N. Seymour

Minimal word pairs that are presumed to be perceptually difficult to differentiate when spoken in black English were examined relative to (1) black children’s performance in differentiating the meanings of their own word pair productions and those of other blacks and whites and (2) white children’s performance in differentiating the meanings of word pairs produced by black children. Perceptual errors were significantly greater for whites listening to word pairs produced by blacks than for blacks listening to themselves, other blacks, or whites. No significant differences were found among blacks listening to themselves, other blacks, and whites. Perceptual errors followed predictable patterns that were influenced by three phonological rules of black English. Also, the data suggest that there are phonemic cues that are imperceptible to non-black-English speakers which allow black-English speakers to differentiate word pairs.


2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (06) ◽  
pp. 783-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
GERGELY TÍMÁR ◽  
KRISTÓF KARACS ◽  
CSABA REKECZKY

This report describes analogic algorithms used in the preprocessing and segmentation phase of offline handwriting recognition tasks. A segmentation-based handwriting recognition approach is discussed, i.e., the system attempts to segment the words into their constituent letters. In order to improve their speed, the utilized CNN algorithms, whenever possible, use dynamic, wave front propagation-based methods instead of relying on morphologic operators were embedded into iterative algorithms. The system first locates the handwritten lines in the page image, then corrects their skew as necessary. It then searches for the words within the lines and corrects the skew at the word level as well. A novel trigger wave-based word segmentation algorithm is presented, which operates on the skeletons of words. Sample results of experiments conducted on a database of 25 handwritten pages along with suggestions for future development are presented.


Author(s):  
Xin Lu ◽  
Yao Deng ◽  
Ting Sun ◽  
Yi Gao ◽  
Jun Feng ◽  
...  

AbstractSentence matching is widely used in various natural language tasks, such as natural language inference, paraphrase identification and question answering. For these tasks, we need to understand the logical and semantic relationship between two sentences. Most current methods use all information within a sentence to build a model and hence determine its relationship to another sentence. However, the information contained in some sentences may cause redundancy or introduce noise, impeding the performance of the model. Therefore, we propose a sentence matching method based on multi keyword-pair matching (MKPM), which uses keyword pairs in two sentences to represent the semantic relationship between them, avoiding the interference of redundancy and noise. Specifically, we first propose a sentence-pair-based attention mechanism sp-attention to select the most important word pair from the two sentences as a keyword pair, and then propose a Bi-task architecture to model the semantic information of these keyword pairs. The Bi-task architecture is as follows: 1. In order to understand the semantic relationship at the word level between two sentences, we design a word-pair task (WP-Task), which uses these keyword pairs to complete sentence matching independently. 2. We design a sentence-pair task (SP-Task) to understand the sentence level semantic relationship between the two sentences by sentence denoising. Through the integration of the two tasks, our model can understand sentences more accurately from the two granularities of word and sentence. Experimental results show that our model can achieve state-of-the-art performance in several tasks. Our source code is publicly available1.


Celestinesca ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Dorothy S. Severin
Keyword(s):  

No disponible.


1991 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Elbert ◽  
Thomas W. Powell ◽  
Paula Swartzlander

This descriptive study examined the number of minimal-word-pair exemplars necessary for 19 phonologically impaired children to meet a generalization criterion. For 59% of the test cases, three exemplars were sufficient for generalization to occur. Five exemplars were sufficient in 21% of the test cases, and it was necessary to teach 10 different exemplars in 14% of the test cases. In 7% of the test cases, generalization did not occur despite treatment on 10 exemplars. Although generalization usually occurred following treatment using a small number of exemplars, there was substantial variability across individual subjects. There was no apparent relationship between specific sounds and the likelihood of generalization; however, the data from some children suggested that treatment on one sound enhances learning of subsequent sounds. The theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.


1975 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 293-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Zhongolovitch

Considering the future development and general solution of the problem under consideration and also the high precision attainable by astronomical observations, the following procedure may be the most rational approach:1. On the main tectonic plates of the Earth’s crust, powerful movable radio telescopes should be mounted at the same points where standard optical instruments are installed. There should be two stations separated by a distance of about 6 to 8000 kilometers on each plate. Thus, we obtain a fundamental polyhedron embracing the whole Earth with about 10 to 12 apexes, and with its sides represented by VLBI.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 1486-1505
Author(s):  
Joshua M. Alexander

PurposeFrequency lowering in hearing aids can cause listeners to perceive [s] as [ʃ]. The S-SH Confusion Test, which consists of 66 minimal word pairs spoken by 6 female talkers, was designed to help clinicians and researchers document these negative side effects. This study's purpose was to use this new test to evaluate the hypothesis that these confusions will increase to the extent that low frequencies are altered.MethodTwenty-one listeners with normal hearing were each tested on 7 conditions. Three were control conditions that were low-pass filtered at 3.3, 5.0, and 9.1 kHz. Four conditions were processed with nonlinear frequency compression (NFC): 2 had a 3.3-kHz maximum audible output frequency (MAOF), with a start frequency (SF) of 1.6 or 2.2 kHz; 2 had a 5.0-kHz MAOF, with an SF of 1.6 or 4.0 kHz. Listeners' responses were analyzed using concepts from signal detection theory. Response times were also collected as a measure of cognitive processing.ResultsOverall, [s] for [ʃ] confusions were minimal. As predicted, [ʃ] for [s] confusions increased for NFC conditions with a lower versus higher MAOF and with a lower versus higher SF. Response times for trials with correct [s] responses were shortest for the 9.1-kHz control and increased for the 5.0- and 3.3-kHz controls. NFC response times were also significantly longer as MAOF and SF decreased. The NFC condition with the highest MAOF and SF had statistically shorter response times than its control condition, indicating that, under some circumstances, NFC may ease cognitive processing.ConclusionsLarge differences in the S-SH Confusion Test across frequency-lowering conditions show that it can be used to document a major negative side effect associated with frequency lowering. Smaller but significant differences in response times for correct [s] trials indicate that NFC can help or hinder cognitive processing, depending on its settings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 544-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly A. Murphy ◽  
Emily A. Diehm

Purpose Morphological interventions promote gains in morphological knowledge and in other oral and written language skills (e.g., phonological awareness, vocabulary, reading, and spelling), yet we have a limited understanding of critical intervention features. In this clinical focus article, we describe a relatively novel approach to teaching morphology that considers its role as the key organizing principle of English orthography. We also present a clinical example of such an intervention delivered during a summer camp at a university speech and hearing clinic. Method Graduate speech-language pathology students provided a 6-week morphology-focused orthographic intervention to children in first through fourth grade ( n = 10) who demonstrated word-level reading and spelling difficulties. The intervention focused children's attention on morphological families, teaching how morphology is interrelated with phonology and etymology in English orthography. Results Comparing pre- and posttest scores, children demonstrated improvement in reading and/or spelling abilities, with the largest gains observed in spelling affixes within polymorphemic words. Children and their caregivers reacted positively to the intervention. Therefore, data from the camp offer preliminary support for teaching morphology within the context of written words, and the intervention appears to be a feasible approach for simultaneously increasing morphological knowledge, reading, and spelling. Conclusion Children with word-level reading and spelling difficulties may benefit from a morphology-focused orthographic intervention, such as the one described here. Research on the approach is warranted, and clinicians are encouraged to explore its possible effectiveness in their practice. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12290687


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 2170-2188
Author(s):  
Lindsey R. Squires ◽  
Sara J. Ohlfest ◽  
Kristen E. Santoro ◽  
Jennifer L. Roberts

Purpose The purpose of this systematic review was to determine evidence of a cognate effect for young multilingual children (ages 3;0–8;11 [years;months], preschool to second grade) in terms of task-level and child-level factors that may influence cognate performance. Cognates are pairs of vocabulary words that share meaning with similar phonology and/or orthography in more than one language, such as rose – rosa (English–Spanish) or carrot – carotte (English–French). Despite the cognate advantage noted with older bilingual children and bilingual adults, there has been no systematic examination of the cognate research in young multilingual children. Method We conducted searches of multiple electronic databases and hand-searched article bibliographies for studies that examined young multilingual children's performance with cognates based on study inclusion criteria aligned to the research questions. Results The review yielded 16 articles. The majority of the studies (12/16, 75%) demonstrated a positive cognate effect for young multilingual children (measured in higher accuracy, faster reaction times, and doublet translation equivalents on cognates as compared to noncognates). However, not all bilingual children demonstrated a cognate effect. Both task-level factors (cognate definition, type of cognate task, word characteristics) and child-level factors (level of bilingualism, age) appear to influence young bilingual children's performance on cognates. Conclusions Contrary to early 1990s research, current researchers suggest that even young multilingual children may demonstrate sensitivity to cognate vocabulary words. Given the limits in study quality, more high-quality research is needed, particularly to address test validity in cognate assessments, to develop appropriate cognate definitions for children, and to refine word-level features. Only one study included a brief instruction prior to assessment, warranting cognate treatment studies as an area of future need. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12753179


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document