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.

Another Dimension for Assessment of Speech-Sound Discrimination: Latency of Response

1975 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 819-826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur H. Schwartz ◽  
Ronald Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Paired Comparison ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Additional Parameter ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Sound Discrimination ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship of speech-sound-discrimination skills and speed of responding was investigated by presenting monosyllabic nouns in three different listening conditions to a total of 72 nursery, kindergarten, and first-grade children divided into three equal-sized groups. Speed of responding was related to the age of subjects, accuracy of responding, and context of presentation of stimulus items. There was a consistent decrease in latency of responding as age increased. Error responses had greater response latencies than correct responses. Response latencies for different contexts of presentation of stimulus items were longest for the paired-comparison context and shortest for the carrier-phrase context. Speed of responding could be considered as an additional parameter when evaluating speech-sound-discrimination skills.

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.

scholarly journals Speech Sound Discrimination Ability in Young Children

1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 279-283
Author(s):  
Shigetada Suzuki ◽  
Masako Notoya ◽  
Miyako Kanasaku ◽  
Suzuko Takeshima ◽  
Tameo Miyazaki
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Discrimination Ability ◽  
Sound Discrimination

scholarly journals Speech Sound Discrimination Ability in Young Children

1977 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-264
Author(s):  
Masako Notoya ◽  
Shigetada Suzuki ◽  
Miyako Kanasaku ◽  
Mikiko Nakajima ◽  
Tameo Miyazaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Discrimination Ability ◽  
Sound Discrimination

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.

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.

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.

Training the Brain to Weight Speech Cues Differently: A Study of Finnish Second-language Users of English

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 1319-1332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sari Ylinen ◽  
Maria Uther ◽  
Antti Latvala ◽  
Sara Vepsäläinen ◽  
Paul Iverson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Spectral Cues ◽  
Phonetic Cues

Foreign-language learning is a prime example of a task that entails perceptual learning. The correct comprehension of foreign-language speech requires the correct recognition of speech sounds. The most difficult speech–sound contrasts for foreign-language learners often are the ones that have multiple phonetic cues, especially if the cues are weighted differently in the foreign and native languages. The present study aimed to determine whether non-native-like cue weighting could be changed by using phonetic training. Before the training, we compared the use of spectral and duration cues of English /i/ and /I/ vowels (e.g., beat vs. bit) between native Finnish and English speakers. In Finnish, duration is used phonologically to separate short and long phonemes, and therefore Finns were expected to weight duration cues more than native English speakers. The cross-linguistic differences and training effects were investigated with behavioral and electrophysiological methods, in particular by measuring the MMN brain response that has been used to probe long-term memory representations for speech sounds. The behavioral results suggested that before the training, the Finns indeed relied more on duration in vowel recognition than the native English speakers did. After the training, however, the Finns were able to use the spectral cues of the vowels more reliably than before. Accordingly, the MMN brain responses revealed that the training had enhanced the Finns' ability to preattentively process the spectral cues of the English vowels. This suggests that as a result of training, plastic changes had occurred in the weighting of phonetic cues at early processing stages in the cortex.

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