WorldWideScience

Sample records for harm foreign speech

  1. Processing changes when listening to foreign-accented speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos eRomero-Rivas

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available This study investigates the mechanisms responsible for fast changes in processing foreign-accented speech. Event Related brain Potentials (ERPs were obtained while native speakers of Spanish listened to native and foreign-accented speakers of Spanish. We observed a less positive P200 component for foreign-accented speech relative to native speech comprehension. This suggests that the extraction of spectral information and other important acoustic features was hampered during foreign-accented speech comprehension. However, the amplitude of the N400 component for foreign-accented speech comprehension decreased across the experiment, suggesting the use of a higher level, lexical mechanism. Furthermore, during native speech comprehension, semantic violations in the critical words elicited an N400 effect followed by a late positivity. During foreign-accented speech comprehension, semantic violations only elicited an N400 effect. Overall, our results suggest that, despite a lack of improvement in phonetic discrimination, native listeners experience changes at lexical-semantic levels of processing after brief exposure to foreign-accented speech. Moreover, these results suggest that lexical access, semantic integration and linguistic re-analysis processes are permeable to external factors, such as the accent of the speaker.

  2. Adapting to foreign-accented speech: The role of delay in testing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Witteman, M.J.; Bardhan, N.P.; Weber, A.C.; McQueen, J.M.

    2011-01-01

    Understanding speech usually seems easy, but it can become noticeably harder when the speaker has a foreign accent. This is because foreign accents add considerable variation to speech. Research on foreign-accented speech shows that participants are able to adapt quickly to this type of variation.

  3. The neural processing of foreign-accented speech and its relationship to listener bias

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    Han-Gyol eYi

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Foreign-accented speech often presents a challenging listening condition. In addition to deviations from the target speech norms related to the inexperience of the nonnative speaker, listener characteristics may play a role in determining intelligibility levels. We have previously shown that an implicit visual bias for associating East Asian faces and foreignness predicts the listeners’ perceptual ability to process Korean-accented English audiovisual speech (Yi et al., 2013. Here, we examine the neural mechanism underlying the influence of listener bias to foreign faces on speech perception. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI study, native English speakers listened to native- and Korean-accented English sentences, with or without faces. The participants’ Asian-foreign association was measured using an implicit association test (IAT, conducted outside the scanner. We found that foreign-accented speech evoked greater activity in the bilateral primary auditory cortices and the inferior frontal gyri, potentially reflecting greater computational demand. Higher IAT scores, indicating greater bias, were associated with increased BOLD response to foreign-accented speech with faces in the primary auditory cortex, the early node for spectrotemporal analysis. We conclude the following: (1 foreign-accented speech perception places greater demand on the neural systems underlying speech perception; (2 face of the talker can exaggerate the perceived foreignness of foreign-accented speech; (3 implicit Asian-foreign association is associated with decreased neural efficiency in early spectrotemporal processing.

  4. Musical expertise and foreign speech perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez-Montes, Eduardo; Hernández-Pérez, Heivet; Chobert, Julie; Morgado-Rodríguez, Lisbet; Suárez-Murias, Carlos; Valdés-Sosa, Pedro A; Besson, Mireille

    2013-01-01

    The aim of this experiment was to investigate the influence of musical expertise on the automatic perception of foreign syllables and harmonic sounds. Participants were Cuban students with high level of expertise in music or in visual arts and with the same level of general education and socio-economic background. We used a multi-feature Mismatch Negativity (MMN) design with sequences of either syllables in Mandarin Chinese or harmonic sounds, both comprising deviants in pitch contour, duration and Voice Onset Time (VOT) or equivalent that were either far from (Large deviants) or close to (Small deviants) the standard. For both Mandarin syllables and harmonic sounds, results were clear-cut in showing larger MMNs to pitch contour deviants in musicians than in visual artists. Results were less clear for duration and VOT deviants, possibly because of the specific characteristics of the stimuli. Results are interpreted as reflecting similar processing of pitch contour in speech and non-speech sounds. The implications of these results for understanding the influence of intense musical training from childhood to adulthood and of genetic predispositions for music on foreign language perception are discussed.

  5. Musical expertise and foreign speech perception

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eduardo eMartínez-Montes

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this experiment was to investigate the influence of musical expertise on the automatic perception of foreign syllables and harmonic sounds. Participants were Cuban students with high level of expertise in music or in visual arts and with the same level of general education and socio-economic background. We used a multi-feature Mismatch Negativity (MMN design with sequences of either syllables in Mandarin Chinese or harmonic sounds, both comprising deviants in pitch contour, duration and Voice Onset Time (VOT or equivalent that were either far from (Large deviants or close to (Small deviants the standard. For both Mandarin syllables and harmonic sounds, results were clear-cut in showing larger MMNs to pitch contour deviants in musicians than in visual artists. Results were less clear for duration and VOT deviants, possibly because of the specific characteristics of the stimuli. Results are interpreted as reflecting similar processing of pitch contour in speech and non-speech sounds. The implications of these results for understanding the influence of intense musical training from childhood to adulthood and of genetic predispositions for music on foreign language perception is discussed.

  6. Perception of Foreign Accent Syndrome Speech and Its Relation to Segmental Characteristics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dankovicova, Jana; Hunt, Claire

    2011-01-01

    Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is an acquired neurogenic disorder characterized by altered speech that sounds foreign-accented. This study presents a British subject perceived to speak with an Italian (or Greek) accent after a brainstem (pontine) stroke. Native English listeners rated the strength of foreign accent and impairment they perceived in…

  7. Perception of foreign-accented clear speech by younger and older English listeners

    OpenAIRE

    Li, Chi-Nin

    2009-01-01

    Naturally produced English clear speech has been shown to be more intelligible than English conversational speech. However, little is known about the extent of the clear speech effects in the production of nonnative English, and perception of foreign-accented English by younger and older listeners. The present study examined whether Cantonese speakers would employ the same strategies as those used by native English speakers in producing clear speech in their second language. Also, the clear s...

  8. Second- and Foreign-Language Variation in Tense Backshifting in Indirect Reported Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charkova, Krassimira D.; Halliday, Laura J.

    2011-01-01

    This study examined how English learners in second-language (SL) and foreign-language (FL) contexts employ tense backshifting in indirect reported speech. Participants included 35 international students in the United States, 37 Bulgarian speakers of English, 38 Bosnian speakers of English, and 41 native English speakers. The instrument involved…

  9. Empathy, Ways of Knowing, and Interdependence as Mediators of Gender Differences in Attitudes toward Hate Speech and Freedom of Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cowan, Gloria; Khatchadourian, Desiree

    2003-01-01

    Women are more intolerant of hate speech than men. This study examined relationality measures as mediators of gender differences in the perception of the harm of hate speech and the importance of freedom of speech. Participants were 107 male and 123 female college students. Questionnaires assessed the perceived harm of hate speech, the importance…

  10. Mild developmental foreign accent syndrome and psychiatric comorbidity: Altered white matter integrity in speech and emotion regulation networks

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    Marcelo L Berthier

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Foreign accent syndrome (FAS is a speech disorder that is defined by the emergence of a peculiar manner of articulation and intonation which is perceived as foreign. In most cases of acquired FAS (AFAS the new accent is secondary to small focal lesions involving components of the bilaterally distributed neural network for speech production. In the past few years FAS has also been described in different psychiatric conditions (conversion disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia as well as in developmental disorders (specific language impairment, apraxia of speech. In the present study, two adult males, one with atypical phonetic production and the other one with cluttering, reported having developmental FAS (DFAS since their adolescence. Perceptual analysis by naïve judges could not confirm the presence of foreign accent, possibly due to the mildness of the speech disorder. However, detailed linguistic analysis provided evidence of prosodic and segmental errors previously reported in AFAS cases. Cognitive testing showed reduced communication in activities of daily living and mild deficits related to psychiatric disorders. Psychiatric evaluation revealed long-lasting internalizing disorders (neuroticism, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia, depression, alexithymia, hopelessness, and apathy in both subjects. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI data from each subject with DFAS were compared with data from a group of 21 age- and gender-matched healthy control subjects. Diffusion parameters (MD, AD, and RD in predefined regions of interest showed changes of white matter microstructure in regions previously related with AFAS and psychiatric disorders. In conclusion, the present findings militate against the possibility that these two subjects have FAS of psychogenic origin. Rather, our findings provide evidence that mild DFAS occurring in the context of subtle, yet persistent, developmental speech disorders may be associated with

  11. Foreign Experience in Mastering Medical Professional Terminology by Foreign Students at Medical Universities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Homonyuk, Olena; Avramenko, Natalia

    2017-01-01

    Professional broadcasting of future medical foreign workers in the medical sector is a compulsory component of their professional readiness. The diversity of professional broadcasting functions of foreign students, the skillful use of the entire range of speech functionality, its external expressive attributability of speech; these are the most…

  12. The role of private speech in cognitive regulation of learners: The case of English as a foreign language education

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    Mohamad Reza Anani Sarab

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Investigations into the use of private speech by adult English foreign language (EFL learners in regulating their mental activities have been an interesting area of research with a sociocultural framework. Following this line of research, 30 advanced adult EFL learners were selected via the administration of Oxford quick placement test and took a test of solving challenging English riddles while their voices were being recorded. Later, instances of the produced private speech were analyzed in terms of form, content, and function. It was demonstrated that private speech with its different forms, contents, and functions plays a very crucial role in cognitive regulation of EFL learners which has important implications for the context of language learning classrooms. In addition, participants seemed to produce qualitatively different kinds of L2 private speech, which brought us to the conclusion that it would be necessary to consider quality and not just quantity in studying psycholinguistic concepts, such as cognitive regulation and private speech.

  13. Effects of Sound, Vocabulary, and Grammar Learning Aptitude on Adult Second Language Speech Attainment in Foreign Language Classrooms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saito, Kazuya

    2017-01-01

    This study examines the relationship between different types of language learning aptitude (measured via the LLAMA test) and adult second language (L2) learners' attainment in speech production in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms. Picture descriptions elicited from 50 Japanese EFL learners from varied proficiency levels were analyzed…

  14. DEVELOPING LISTENING SKILLS FOR IMPROVING FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

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    Iryna Lobachova

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with the problem of developing listening skills for improving foreign language communicative competence. The practical value of using an authentic foreign language text at a foreign language lesson is determined. The ways of the use of the English language recordings in the educational process of students are outlined. It is found out that tracks with foreign information should be used only in the certain methodical situations. Multimedia helps effectively a teacher to achieve outlined objectives of improving foreign language communicative competence for multiple repetition of a speech model for making permanent listening item of language units. The basic stages of work with foreign language recordings are determined: teaching a foreign language listening (teaching to listen and understand the foreign language track means to overcome the methodological difficulties that require a certain amount of time and special training. This is explained by the fact that there are lots of difficulties on the way of understanding a foreign language: an unusual speed of speech, presence of unknown vocabulary, specific rhythms and melody; teaching a foreign language speech with the special models pronounced by foreign speakers (teaching students to practical mastery of a foreign language is intrinsically linked with involvement into the educational process of original English tracks, those are made by highly skilled experts (foreign speakers; learning a new vocabulary due to a dialogue, an extract of a play or a conversation, songs, prose and poetry (it is noted that the students’ interest of learning foreign language songs and poems is extremely high, and it primarily promotes strong learning; analysing the recorded students’ speech (fixing student’s speech and analysing their mistakes is very important at any stage of learning a foreign language for self-control and self-correction.

  15. Designing acoustics for linguistically diverse classrooms: Effects of background noise, reverberation and talker foreign accent on speech comprehension by native and non-native English-speaking listeners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peng, Zhao Ellen

    The current classroom acoustics standard (ANSI S12.60-2010) recommends core learning spaces not to exceed background noise level (BNL) of 35 dBA and reverberation time (RT) of 0.6 second, based on speech intelligibility performance mainly by the native English-speaking population. Existing literature has not correlated these recommended values well with student learning outcomes. With a growing population of non-native English speakers in American classrooms, the special needs for perceiving degraded speech among non-native listeners, either due to realistic room acoustics or talker foreign accent, have not been addressed in the current standard. This research seeks to investigate the effects of BNL and RT on the comprehension of English speech from native English and native Mandarin Chinese talkers as perceived by native and non-native English listeners, and to provide acoustic design guidelines to supplement the existing standard. This dissertation presents two studies on the effects of RT and BNL on more realistic classroom learning experiences. How do native and non-native English-speaking listeners perform on speech comprehension tasks under adverse acoustic conditions, if the English speech is produced by talkers of native English (Study 1) versus native Mandarin Chinese (Study 2)? Speech comprehension materials were played back in a listening chamber to individual listeners: native and non-native English-speaking in Study 1; native English, native Mandarin Chinese, and other non-native English-speaking in Study 2. Each listener was screened for baseline English proficiency level, and completed dual tasks simultaneously involving speech comprehension and adaptive dot-tracing under 15 acoustic conditions, comprised of three BNL conditions (RC-30, 40, and 50) and five RT scenarios (0.4 to 1.2 seconds). The results show that BNL and RT negatively affect both objective performance and subjective perception of speech comprehension, more severely for non

  16. The Role of Private Speech in Cognitive Regulation of Learners: The Case of English as a Foreign Language Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sarab, Mohamad Reza Anani; Gordani, Yahya

    2015-01-01

    Investigations into the use of private speech by adult English foreign language (EFL) learners in regulating their mental activities have been an interesting area of research with a sociocultural framework. Following this line of research, 30 advanced adult EFL learners were selected via the administration of Oxford quick placement test and took a…

  17. Grammatical realization of Russian etiquette speech genres: The ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The article is devoted to the issue of grammatical approach application during the teaching of Russian etiquette speech for foreigners. In the practice of teaching Russian as a foreign language, the issues related to the development of etiquette speech genres arise at all stages of language learning, beginning with the first ...

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ylinen, Sari; Uther, Maria; Latvala, Antti; Vepsalainen, Sara; Iverson, Paul; Akahane-Yamada, Reiko; Naatanen, Risto

    2010-01-01

    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…

  19. Recognizing speech in a novel accent: the motor theory of speech perception reframed.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moulin-Frier, Clément; Arbib, Michael A

    2013-08-01

    The motor theory of speech perception holds that we perceive the speech of another in terms of a motor representation of that speech. However, when we have learned to recognize a foreign accent, it seems plausible that recognition of a word rarely involves reconstruction of the speech gestures of the speaker rather than the listener. To better assess the motor theory and this observation, we proceed in three stages. Part 1 places the motor theory of speech perception in a larger framework based on our earlier models of the adaptive formation of mirror neurons for grasping, and for viewing extensions of that mirror system as part of a larger system for neuro-linguistic processing, augmented by the present consideration of recognizing speech in a novel accent. Part 2 then offers a novel computational model of how a listener comes to understand the speech of someone speaking the listener's native language with a foreign accent. The core tenet of the model is that the listener uses hypotheses about the word the speaker is currently uttering to update probabilities linking the sound produced by the speaker to phonemes in the native language repertoire of the listener. This, on average, improves the recognition of later words. This model is neutral regarding the nature of the representations it uses (motor vs. auditory). It serve as a reference point for the discussion in Part 3, which proposes a dual-stream neuro-linguistic architecture to revisits claims for and against the motor theory of speech perception and the relevance of mirror neurons, and extracts some implications for the reframing of the motor theory.

  20. Effects of regiolects on the perception of developmental foreign accent syndrome

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tops, Wim; Neimeijer, Silke; Mariën, Peter

    Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a relatively rare speech motor disorder in which the pro- nunciation of an affected speaker is perceived as distinctly foreign by listeners of the same language community. Because of various close semiological resemblances with apraxia of speech, FAS has been

  1. Multidisciplinary Assessment and Diagnosis of Conversion Disorder in a Patient with Foreign Accent Syndrome

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    Harrison N. Jones

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Multiple reports have described patients with disordered articulation and prosody, often following acute aphasia, dysarthria, or apraxia of speech, which results in the perception by listeners of a foreign-like accent. These features led to the term foreign accent syndrome (FAS, a speech disorder with perceptual features that suggest an indistinct, non-native speaking accent. Also correctly known as psuedoforeign accent, the speech does not typically match a specific foreign accent, but is rather a constellation of speech features that result in the perception of a foreign accent by listeners. The primary etiologies of FAS are cerebrovascular accidents or traumatic brain injuries which affect cortical and subcortical regions critical to expressive speech and language production. Far fewer cases of FAS associated with psychiatric conditions have been reported. We will present the clinical history, neurological examination, neuropsychological assessment, cognitive-behavioral and biofeedback assessments, and motor speech examination of a patient with FAS without a known vascular, traumatic, or infectious precipitant. Repeated multidisciplinary examinations of this patient provided convergent evidence in support of FAS secondary to conversion disorder. We discuss these findings and their implications for evaluation and treatment of rare neurological and psychiatric conditions.

  2. Prediction and Optimization of Speech Intelligibility in Adverse Conditions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Taal, C.H.

    2013-01-01

    In digital speech-communication systems like mobile phones, public address systems and hearing aids, conveying the message is one of the most important goals. This can be challenging since the intelligibility of the speech may be harmed at various stages before, during and after the transmission

  3. Designing speech for a recipient

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fischer, Kerstin

    This study asks how speakers adjust their speech to their addressees, focusing on the potential roles of cognitive representations such as partner models, automatic processes such as interactive alignment, and social processes such as interactional negotiation. The nature of addressee orientation......, psycholinguistics and conversation analysis, and offers both overviews of child-directed, foreigner-directed and robot-directed speech and in-depth analyses of the processes involved in adjusting to a communication partner....

  4. Communication and Gamification in the Web-Based Foreign Language Educational System: Web- Based Foreign Language Educational System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osipov, Ilya V.; Volinsky, Alex A.; Nikulchev, Evgeny; Prasikova, Anna Y.

    2016-01-01

    The paper describes development of the educational online web communication platform for teaching and learning foreign languages. The main objective was to develop a web application for teaching foreigners to understand casual fluent speech. The system is based on the time bank principle, allowing users to teach others their native language along…

  5. Accent Attribution in Speakers with Foreign Accent Syndrome

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verhoeven, Jo; De Pauw, Guy; Pettinato, Michele; Hirson, Allen; Van Borsel, John; Marien, Peter

    2013-01-01

    Purpose: The main aim of this experiment was to investigate the perception of Foreign Accent Syndrome in comparison to speakers with an authentic foreign accent. Method: Three groups of listeners attributed accents to conversational speech samples of 5 FAS speakers which were embedded amongst those of 5 speakers with a real foreign accent and 5…

  6. Intensive foreign language learning reveals effects on categorical perception of sibilant voicing after only 3 weeks

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Andreas Højlund; Horn, Nynne Thorup; Derdau Sørensen, Stine

    2015-01-01

    Models of speech learning suggest that adaptations to foreign language sound categories take place within 6-12 months of exposure to a foreign language. Results from laboratory language training show effects of very targeted training on non-native speech contrasts within only one to three weeks...... of training. Results from immersion studies are inconclusive, but some suggest continued effects on non-native speech perception after 6-8 years of experience. We investigated this apparent discrepancy in the timing of adaptation to foreign speech sounds in a longitudinal study of foreign language learning....... We examined two groups of Danish language officer cadets learning either Arabic (MSA and Egyptian Arabic) or Dari (Afghan Farsi) through intensive multi-faceted language training. We conducted two experiments (identification and discrimination) with the cadets who were tested four times: at the start...

  7. PREPARING TEXTUAL ELEMENTS OF BYOD TECHNOLOGIESIN THE WORD-ONLINE ENVIRONMENT TO SUPPORT ELEMENTARY SKILLS OF RUSSIAN SPEECH OF FOREIGN STUDENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Х Э Исмаилова

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The article considers some pedagogical and information technological aspects of the preparation and use of the Russian as a foreign language teacher copyrighted electronic manuals. The purpose of the development is to support the process of formation and development of the foreign students’ basic skills in Russian speech in the form of extracurricular activities with elements of BYOD technologies. As well as to form the basic elements of the intercultural communication in a multi-ethnic environment, tolerance and other components of communicative competence. The manual contains text, dedicated to the national holiday Navruz and a series of exercises. It is designed as the word-online document and hosted on the MS-OneDrive cloud disk. The scheme presented allows foreign students to use their own mobile devices to access the materials via the Internet. The information product was used for the preparation of the study group to attend extracurricular activities. In addition, an electronic document that is hosted on the teacher’s cloud drive can be linked in the e-textbooks and on the teacher’s web sites, for example the MOODLE type systems.

  8. A Cross-Lingual Mobile Medical Communication System Prototype for Foreigners and Subjects with Speech, Hearing, and Mental Disabilities Based on Pictograms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wołk, Krzysztof; Wołk, Agnieszka; Glinkowski, Wojciech

    2017-01-01

    People with speech, hearing, or mental impairment require special communication assistance, especially for medical purposes. Automatic solutions for speech recognition and voice synthesis from text are poor fits for communication in the medical domain because they are dependent on error-prone statistical models. Systems dependent on manual text input are insufficient. Recently introduced systems for automatic sign language recognition are dependent on statistical models as well as on image and gesture quality. Such systems remain in early development and are based mostly on minimal hand gestures unsuitable for medical purposes. Furthermore, solutions that rely on the Internet cannot be used after disasters that require humanitarian aid. We propose a high-speed, intuitive, Internet-free, voice-free, and text-free tool suited for emergency medical communication. Our solution is a pictogram-based application that provides easy communication for individuals who have speech or hearing impairment or mental health issues that impair communication, as well as foreigners who do not speak the local language. It provides support and clarification in communication by using intuitive icons and interactive symbols that are easy to use on a mobile device. Such pictogram-based communication can be quite effective and ultimately make people's lives happier, easier, and safer.

  9. A Mozart is not a Pavarotti: singers outperform instrumentalists on foreign accent imitation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christiner, Markus; Reiterer, Susanne Maria

    2015-01-01

    Recent findings have shown that people with higher musical aptitude were also better in oral language imitation tasks. However, whether singing capacity and instrument playing contribute differently to the imitation of speech has been ignored so far. Research has just recently started to understand that instrumentalists develop quite distinct skills when compared to vocalists. In the same vein the role of the vocal motor system in language acquisition processes has poorly been investigated as most investigations (neurobiological and behavioral) favor to examine speech perception. We set out to test whether the vocal motor system can influence an ability to learn, produce and perceive new languages by contrasting instrumentalists and vocalists. Therefore, we investigated 96 participants, 27 instrumentalists, 33 vocalists and 36 non-musicians/non-singers. They were tested for their abilities to imitate foreign speech: unknown language (Hindi), second language (English) and their musical aptitude. Results revealed that both instrumentalists and vocalists have a higher ability to imitate unintelligible speech and foreign accents than non-musicians/non-singers. Within the musician group, vocalists outperformed instrumentalists significantly. First, adaptive plasticity for speech imitation is not reliant on audition alone but also on vocal-motor induced processes. Second, vocal flexibility of singers goes together with higher speech imitation aptitude. Third, vocal motor training, as of singers, may speed up foreign language acquisition processes.

  10. Foreign Body Retrieval

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... advances to the location of the foreign object in real-time. Your physician also may locate soft-tissue objects ... perform surgery using ultrasound guidance. Ultrasound provides real-time imaging, making it a good tool for guiding removal procedures. In some cases, it is potentially more harmful to ...

  11. Foreign Body Retrieval

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... provides real-time imaging, making it a good tool for guiding removal procedures. In some cases, it is potentially more harmful to remove the ... provides real-time imaging, making it a good tool for guiding foreign body removal ... rare cases, the general anesthesia used during rigid esophagoscopy can ...

  12. Morality and Foreign Policy. A Symposium on President Carter's Stance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lefever, Ernest W., Ed.

    This monograph contains a critical examination of President Carter's view on ethics and foreign policy as expressed in his commencement speech at Notre Dame University on May 22, 1977. The book is organized into three parts. Part 1 contains Mr. Carter's speech entitled, "Power for Humane Purposes." Part 2 contains nine responses to the…

  13. Foreign Exchange Exposures of Korean Firms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sungbin Cho

    2011-03-01

    Full Text Available We measure foreign exchange exposures as sensitivity of firm's value to FX premium in the CAPM plus FX premium model, and try to find determinants of the exposures; using data of non-financial companies listed in the Korea Exchange from the year 2007 to 2008. Main findings are as follows. If Korean won depreciates, only a small number of firms is benefitted while majority of firms are harmed to the contrary of common knowledge. As a firm's export increases, the foreign exchange exposure increases up to a certain level and after that it declines. And, smaller firms of negative foreign exchange exposures are more sensitive to foreign exchange changes. These suggest heterogeneous effects of foreign exchange rates on industries and firms.

  14. Methods and Application of Phonetic Label Alignment in Speech Processing Tasks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Myslivec

    2000-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper deals with the problem of automatic phonetic segmentation ofspeech signals, namely for speech analysis and recognition purposes.Several methods and approaches are described and evaluated from thepoint of view of their accuracy. A complete instruction for creating anannotated database for training a Czech speech recognition system isprovided together with the authors' own experience. The results of thework have found practical applications, for example, in developing atool for semi-automatic speech segmentation, building alarge-vocabulary phoneme-based speech recognition system and designingan aid for learning and practicing pronunciation of words or phrases inthe native or a foreign language.

  15. More than a boundary shift: Perceptual adaptation to foreign-accented speech reshapes the internal structure of phonetic categories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xie, Xin; Theodore, Rachel M; Myers, Emily B

    2017-01-01

    The literature on perceptual learning for speech shows that listeners use lexical information to disambiguate phonetically ambiguous speech sounds and that they maintain this new mapping for later recognition of ambiguous sounds for a given talker. Evidence for this kind of perceptual reorganization has focused on phonetic category boundary shifts. Here, we asked whether listeners adjust both category boundaries and internal category structure in rapid adaptation to foreign accents. We investigated the perceptual learning of Mandarin-accented productions of word-final voiced stops in English. After exposure to a Mandarin speaker's productions, native-English listeners' adaptation to the talker was tested in 3 ways: a cross-modal priming task to assess spoken word recognition (Experiment 1), a category identification task to assess shifts in the phonetic boundary (Experiment 2), and a goodness rating task to assess internal category structure (Experiment 3). Following exposure, both category boundary and internal category structure were adjusted; moreover, these prelexical changes facilitated subsequent word recognition. Together, the results demonstrate that listeners' sensitivity to acoustic-phonetic detail in the accented input promoted a dynamic, comprehensive reorganization of their perceptual response as a consequence of exposure to the accented input. We suggest that an examination of internal category structure is important for a complete account of the mechanisms of perceptual learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  16. Song and speech: examining the link between singing talent and speech imitation ability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christiner, Markus; Reiterer, Susanne M

    2013-01-01

    In previous research on speech imitation, musicality, and an ability to sing were isolated as the strongest indicators of good pronunciation skills in foreign languages. We, therefore, wanted to take a closer look at the nature of the ability to sing, which shares a common ground with the ability to imitate speech. This study focuses on whether good singing performance predicts good speech imitation. Forty-one singers of different levels of proficiency were selected for the study and their ability to sing, to imitate speech, their musical talent and working memory were tested. Results indicated that singing performance is a better indicator of the ability to imitate speech than the playing of a musical instrument. A multiple regression revealed that 64% of the speech imitation score variance could be explained by working memory together with educational background and singing performance. A second multiple regression showed that 66% of the speech imitation variance of completely unintelligible and unfamiliar language stimuli (Hindi) could be explained by working memory together with a singer's sense of rhythm and quality of voice. This supports the idea that both vocal behaviors have a common grounding in terms of vocal and motor flexibility, ontogenetic and phylogenetic development, neural orchestration and auditory memory with singing fitting better into the category of "speech" on the productive level and "music" on the acoustic level. As a result, good singers benefit from vocal and motor flexibility, productively and cognitively, in three ways. (1) Motor flexibility and the ability to sing improve language and musical function. (2) Good singers retain a certain plasticity and are open to new and unusual sound combinations during adulthood both perceptually and productively. (3) The ability to sing improves the memory span of the auditory working memory.

  17. Song and speech: examining the link between singing talent and speech imitation ability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Markus eChristiner

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available In previous research on speech imitation, musicality and an ability to sing were isolated as the strongest indicators of good pronunciation skills in foreign languages. We, therefore, wanted to take a closer look at the nature of the ability to sing, which shares a common ground with the ability to imitate speech. This study focuses on whether good singing performance predicts good speech imitation. Fourty-one singers of different levels of proficiency were selected for the study and their ability to sing, to imitate speech, their musical talent and working memory were tested. Results indicated that singing performance is a better indicator of the ability to imitate speech than the playing of a musical instrument. A multiple regression revealed that 64 % of the speech imitation score variance could be explained by working memory together with educational background and singing performance. A second multiple regression showed that 66 % of the speech imitation variance of completely unintelligible and unfamiliar language stimuli (Hindi could be explained by working memory together with a singer’s sense of rhythm and quality of voice. This supports the idea that both vocal behaviors have a common grounding in terms of vocal and motor flexibility, ontogenetic and phylogenetic development, neural orchestration and sound memory with singing fitting better into the category of "speech" on the productive level and "music" on the acoustic level. As a result, good singers benefit from vocal and motor flexibility, productively and cognitively, in three ways. 1. Motor flexibility and the ability to sing improve language and musical function. 2. Good singers retain a certain plasticity and are open to new and unusual sound combinations during adulthood both perceptually and productively. 3. The ability to sing improves the memory span of the auditory short term memory.

  18. FORMATION OF CROSS-CULTURAL COMPETENCE OF FOREIGN STUDENTS IN THE PROCESS OF LEARNING UKRAINIAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Галина Дідук-Ступ'як

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to the problem of formation of cross-cultural competence of foreign students in the process of learning Ukrainian as a foreign language. Theoretical and pragmatic ways of intercultural communication methods for speakers of a foreign language in four types of speech activity have been substantiated. There have been determined linguistic and didactic principles of learning the Ukrainian language as a foreign language using authorial technology of interaction of different approaches that promotes the development of effective cross-cultural competence of foreign students. The main components of the innovative technology of work with foreign language audience have been characterized; a system of tasks and exercises aimed at mastering linguistic, socio-cultural and pragmatic competences has been set. There have been determined linguistic and methodical problems of comparative methodology, which authoring technology LTIRP with the usage of authentic texts is based on. Traditional and new forms, methods and techniques of teaching foreign students in the process of formation of cross-cultural competence have been considered.

  19. Song and speech: examining the link between singing talent and speech imitation ability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christiner, Markus; Reiterer, Susanne M.

    2013-01-01

    In previous research on speech imitation, musicality, and an ability to sing were isolated as the strongest indicators of good pronunciation skills in foreign languages. We, therefore, wanted to take a closer look at the nature of the ability to sing, which shares a common ground with the ability to imitate speech. This study focuses on whether good singing performance predicts good speech imitation. Forty-one singers of different levels of proficiency were selected for the study and their ability to sing, to imitate speech, their musical talent and working memory were tested. Results indicated that singing performance is a better indicator of the ability to imitate speech than the playing of a musical instrument. A multiple regression revealed that 64% of the speech imitation score variance could be explained by working memory together with educational background and singing performance. A second multiple regression showed that 66% of the speech imitation variance of completely unintelligible and unfamiliar language stimuli (Hindi) could be explained by working memory together with a singer's sense of rhythm and quality of voice. This supports the idea that both vocal behaviors have a common grounding in terms of vocal and motor flexibility, ontogenetic and phylogenetic development, neural orchestration and auditory memory with singing fitting better into the category of “speech” on the productive level and “music” on the acoustic level. As a result, good singers benefit from vocal and motor flexibility, productively and cognitively, in three ways. (1) Motor flexibility and the ability to sing improve language and musical function. (2) Good singers retain a certain plasticity and are open to new and unusual sound combinations during adulthood both perceptually and productively. (3) The ability to sing improves the memory span of the auditory working memory. PMID:24319438

  20. If it quacks like a duck: reviewing health care providers' speech restrictions under the first prong of Central Hudson.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fultz, Shawn L

    2013-01-01

    The First Amendment protects the speech of health care providers. This protection can limit states' abilities to protect patients from harmful therapies involving speech, such as sexual orientation change efforts. Because providers' speech is more similar to commercial speech than traditional political discourse, it is possible to create a First Amendment review analysis that better balances states' police powers with providers' First Amendment rights. Under a "single-prong" approach, the first prong of Central Hudson can be used to identify quackery, which is analogous to false or misleading commercial speech and would therefore be outside the protection of the First Amendment. Because health care must be tailored to individual patients, restrictions on speech that survive the first prong of Central Hudson would be subject to strict scrutiny in order to leave the therapeutic decision to the provider and her patient, and maintain consistency with current jurisprudence. This Comment examines litigation from California's attempted ban on sexual orientation change therapy to illustrate the conflicts created by the current approach to First Amendment review of health care provider speech. This Comment then demonstrates the benefit of the proposed single-prong approach, including how it simultaneously protects patients from harm while protecting health care providers' speech.

  1. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EXISTING INTENSIVE METHODS OF TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES

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    Maria Mytnyk

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with the study and analysis of comparable existing intensive methods of teaching foreign languages. This work is carried out to identify the positive and negative aspects of intensive methods of teaching foreign languages. The author traces the idea of rational organization and intensification of teaching foreign languages from their inception to the moment of their preparation in an integrated system. advantages and disadvantages of the most popular methods of intensive training also analyzed the characteristic of different historical periods, namely cugestopedichny method G. Lozanov method activation of reserve possibilities of students G. Kitaygorodskoy, emotional-semantic method I. Schechter, an intensive course of learning a foreign language L. Gegechkori , sugestokibernetichny integral method of accelerated learning a foreign language B. Petrusinskogo, a crash course in the study of spoken language by immersion A. Plesnevich. Analyzed the principles of learning and the role of each method in the development of methods of intensive foreign language training. The author identified a number of advantages and disadvantages of intensive methods of teaching foreign languages: 1 the assimilation of a large number of linguistic, lexical and grammatical units; 2 active use of acquired knowledge, skills and abilities in the practice of oral speech communication in a foreign language; 3 the ability to use language material resulting not only in his speech, but also in understanding the interlocutor; 4 overcoming psychological barriers, including fear of the possibility of making a mistake; 5 high efficiency and fast learning; 6 too much new language material that is presented; 7 training of oral forms of communication; 8 decline of grammatical units and models.

  2. The way you say it, the way I feel it: emotional word processing in accented speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hatzidaki, Anna; Baus, Cristina; Costa, Albert

    2015-01-01

    The present study examined whether processing words with affective connotations in a listener's native language may be modulated by accented speech. To address this question, we used the Event Related Potential (ERP) technique and recorded the cerebral activity of Spanish native listeners, who performed a semantic categorization task, while listening to positive, negative and neutral words produced in standard Spanish or in four foreign accents. The behavioral results yielded longer latencies for emotional than for neutral words in both native and foreign-accented speech, with no difference between positive and negative words. The electrophysiological results replicated previous findings from the emotional language literature, with the amplitude of the Late Positive Complex (LPC), associated with emotional language processing, being larger (more positive) for emotional than for neutral words at posterior scalp sites. Interestingly, foreign-accented speech was found to interfere with the processing of positive valence and go along with a negativity bias, possibly suggesting heightened attention to negative words. The manipulation employed in the present study provides an interesting perspective on the effects of accented speech on processing affective-laden information. It shows that higher order semantic processes that involve emotion-related aspects are sensitive to a speaker's accent. PMID:25870577

  3. Factors involved in the identification of stuttering severity in a foreign language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cosyns, Marjan; Einarsdóttir, Jóhanna T; Van Borsel, John

    2015-01-01

    Speech-language pathologists nowadays are more and more confronted with clients who speak a language different from their own mother tongue. The assessment of persons who speak a foreign language poses particular challenges. The present study investigated the possible role and interplay of factors involved in the identification of stuttering severity in a foreign language. Nineteen speech-language pathologists from five different countries (i.e. Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Belgium) rated stuttering severity of speech samples featuring persons who stutter speaking Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, or Dutch. Additionally, they were asked to score how easy they found it to rate the samples. Accuracy of rating stuttering severity in another language appeared to be foremost determined by the client's stuttering severity, while experienced ease of rating stuttering severity was essentially related to closeness of the language of the clinician to that of the client and familiarity of the clinician with the client's language. Stuttering measurement training programmes in different languages are needed.

  4. The common denominator in the perception of accents in cases with foreign accent syndrome

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jonkers, Roel; van der Scheer, Fennetta; Gilbers, Dicky

    2017-01-01

    Background: Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a rare speech disorder leading to a perceived presence of a new accent in a speaker’s speech. Until now, around 100 cases of FAS have been reported. It is striking that in most cases the perception of the accent is in one consistent direction, namely from

  5. Corporate Speech and the Constitution: The Deregulation of Tobacco Advertising

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gostin, Lawrence O.

    2002-01-01

    In a series of recent cases, the Supreme Court has given businesses powerful new First Amendment rights to advertise hazardous products. Most recently, in Lorillard Tobacco Co v Reilly (121 SCt 2404 [2001]), the court invalidated Massachusetts regulations intended to reduce underage smoking. The future prospects for commercial speech regulation appear dim, but the reasoning in commercial speech cases is supported by only a plurality of the court. A different First Amendment theory should recognize the importance of population health and the low value of corporate speech. In particular, a future court should consider the low informational value of tobacco advertising, the availability of alternative channels of communication, the unlawful practice of targeting minors, and the magnitude of the social harms. PMID:11867306

  6. Incidental acquisition of foreign language vocabulary through brief multi-modal exposure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bisson, Marie-Josée; van Heuven, Walter J B; Conklin, Kathy; Tunney, Richard J

    2013-01-01

    First language acquisition requires relatively little effort compared to foreign language acquisition and happens more naturally through informal learning. Informal exposure can also benefit foreign language learning, although evidence for this has been limited to speech perception and production. An important question is whether informal exposure to spoken foreign language also leads to vocabulary learning through the creation of form-meaning links. Here we tested the impact of exposure to foreign language words presented with pictures in an incidental learning phase on subsequent explicit foreign language learning. In the explicit learning phase, we asked adults to learn translation equivalents of foreign language words, some of which had appeared in the incidental learning phase. Results revealed rapid learning of the foreign language words in the incidental learning phase showing that informal exposure to multi-modal foreign language leads to foreign language vocabulary acquisition. The creation of form-meaning links during the incidental learning phase is discussed.

  7. Harmful Tax Competition in the EU with Reference to Croatia

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    Saša Drezgić

    2005-08-01

    Full Text Available The process of globalisation has led, among other things, to harmful tax competition. This paper considers the efforts within the EU in combating harmful tax competition (Code of Conduct on Business Taxation and their effects when taking into account the EU regulations in relation to state aids. Considering a number of problems in the implementation of the Code, and the numerous criticisms with regard to the validity of the combat against harmful tax competition – it is difficult to give a final answer about its success. Croatian tax system, and the corporation tax in particular, are analysed in the light of the aforementioned problems. The advantages of the equal treatment of domestic and foreign investors, as well as the certain elements of state aids in tax benefits, are pointed out.

  8. Studies of Speech Disorders in Schizophrenia. History and State-of-the-art

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    Shedovskiy E. F.

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The article reviews studies of speech disorders in schizophrenia. The authors paid attention to a historical course and characterization of studies of areas: the actual psychopathological (speech disorders as a psychopathological symptoms, their description and taxonomy, psychological (isolated neurons and pathopsychological perspective analysis separately analyzed some modern foreign works, covering a variety of approaches to the study of speech disorders in the endogenous mental disorders. Disorders and features of speech are among the most striking manifestations of schizophrenia along with impaired thinking (Savitskaya A. V., Mikirtumov B. E.. With all the variety of symptoms, speech disorders in schizophrenia could be classified and organized. The few clinical psychological studies of speech activity in schizophrenia presented work on the study of generation and standard speech utterance; features verbal associative process, speed parameters of speech utterances. Special attention is given to integrated research in the mainstream of biological psychiatry and genetic trends. It is shown that the topic for more than a half-century history of originality of speech pathology in schizophrenia has received some coverage in the psychiatric and psychological literature and continues to generate interest in the modern integrated multidisciplinary approach

  9. The Bush Doctrine: The Foreign Policy of Republican Empire

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-01-01

    Michael W. Doyle, ‘‘Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs,’’ Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 3, Summer, 1983, pp. 205–235 and ‘‘Kant...Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part 2,’’ Philosophy and Public Affairs, Autumn, 1983, pp. 323–353, as well as Doyle, Ways of War and Peace (New...so-called libertarians and OWENS 41 George Bush, Graduation Speech at the US Air Force Academy, June 2, 2004, http:// www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases

  10. Improvement of intelligibility of ideal binary-masked noisy speech by adding background noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cao, Shuyang; Li, Liang; Wu, Xihong

    2011-04-01

    When a target-speech/masker mixture is processed with the signal-separation technique, ideal binary mask (IBM), intelligibility of target speech is remarkably improved in both normal-hearing listeners and hearing-impaired listeners. Intelligibility of speech can also be improved by filling in speech gaps with un-modulated broadband noise. This study investigated whether intelligibility of target speech in the IBM-treated target-speech/masker mixture can be further improved by adding a broadband-noise background. The results of this study show that following the IBM manipulation, which remarkably released target speech from speech-spectrum noise, foreign-speech, or native-speech masking (experiment 1), adding a broadband-noise background with the signal-to-noise ratio no less than 4 dB significantly improved intelligibility of target speech when the masker was either noise (experiment 2) or speech (experiment 3). The results suggest that since adding the noise background shallows the areas of silence in the time-frequency domain of the IBM-treated target-speech/masker mixture, the abruption of transient changes in the mixture is smoothed and the perceived continuity of target-speech components becomes enhanced, leading to improved target-speech intelligibility. The findings are useful for advancing computational auditory scene analysis, hearing-aid/cochlear-implant designs, and understanding of speech perception under "cocktail-party" conditions.

  11. DEVELOPMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STYLISTIC COMPETENCE OF FUTURE PHILOLOGISTS: GRAMMATICAL ASPECT

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    Олена Вовк

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available The article studies a grammatical aspect of developing stylistic competence of students of linguistic departments. Particularly, the stylistic competence which is defined as a capacity to create adequate utterances under natural conditions of communication according to a concrete situation is characterized. To highlight the importance of acquiring stylistic competence the levels of speech development of an individual are indentified and the stages of teaching grammar are differentiated. The approaches to teaching stylistic grammar are characterized within a communicative framework and relevant skills are elucidated. The role of functional styles in teaching a foreign language is clarified. The idea of teaching students to be able to make register shifts and mixture of speech registers in the process of foreign language competence acquiring are highlihgted. The theoretical principles are illustrated with the appropriate examples of exercises.

  12. 78 FR 49693 - Speech-to-Speech and Internet Protocol (IP) Speech-to-Speech Telecommunications Relay Services...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-08-15

    ...-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities, Report and Order (Order), document...] Speech-to-Speech and Internet Protocol (IP) Speech-to-Speech Telecommunications Relay Services; Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and Speech Disabilities...

  13. Can You Understand Me? Speaking Robots and Accented Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moussalli, Souheila; Cardoso, Walcir

    2017-01-01

    The results of our previous research on the pedagogical use of Speaking Robots (SRs) revealed positive effects on motivating students to practice their oral skills in a stress-free environment. However, our findings indicated that the SR was sometimes unable to understand students' foreign accented speech. In this paper, we report the results of a…

  14. SPEECH ACT OF ILTIFAT AND ITS INDONESIAN TRANSLATION PROBLEMS

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    Zaka Al Farisi

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: Iltifat (shifting speech act is distinctive and considered unique style of Arabic. It has potential errors when it is translated into Indonesian. Therefore, translation of iltifat speech act into another language can be an important issue. The objective of the study is to know translation procedures/techniques and ideology required in dealing with iltifat speech act. This research is directed at translation as a cognitive product of a translator. The data used in the present study were the corpus of Koranic verses that contain iltifat speech act along with their translation. Data analysis typically used descriptive-evaluative method with content analysis model. The data source of this research consisted of the Koran and its translation. The purposive sampling technique was employed, with the sample of the iltifat speech act contained in the Koran. The results showed that more than 60% of iltifat speech act were translated by using literal procedure. The significant number of literal translation of the verses asserts that the Ministry of Religious Affairs tended to use literal method of translation. In other words, the Koran translation made by the Ministry of Religious Affairs tended to be oriented to the source language in dealing with iltifat speech act. The number of the literal procedure used shows a tendency of foreignization ideology. Transitional pronouns contained in the iltifat speech act can be clearly translated when thick translations were used in the form of description in parentheses. In this case, explanation can be a choice in translating iltifat speech act.

  15. Does Hearing Several Speakers Reduce Foreign Word Learning?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ludington, Jason Darryl

    2016-01-01

    Learning spoken word forms is a vital part of second language learning, and CALL lends itself well to this training. Not enough is known, however, about how auditory variation across speech tokens may affect receptive word learning. To find out, 144 Thai university students with no knowledge of the Patani Malay language learned 24 foreign words in…

  16. Communication and Pragmatic Skills in Foreign Language Classes

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    Olda Xhepa BALLIU

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper tries to analyze the importance and the relationship between communication and pragmatic skills in foreign language classes. Philosophers and linguists have dealt with language, analyzing it from the psychological viewpoint. Communication in L1 or L2 is related and it depends on the science of pragmatics. While communicating, interlocutors interact impacted by the context, the situation, the receiver, the sender, by using the formal or the informal language according to the circumstances. For this reason, we try, in this paper, to make a thorough description of the relationship between communication and pragmatics. Students need to master pragmatic skills in order to communicate. If Italian students or foreign language students have developed pragmatic skills in the native language, this will help them learning a foreign language. The goal of the foreign language teacher is to help students achieve communication skills. The pragmatic and communication skills can be practiced through communication activities like in L1 for speech acts are practiced in communication.

  17. DELVING INTO SPEECH ACT A Case Of Indonesian EFL Young Learners

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    Swastika Septiani, S.Pd

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available This study attempts to describe the use of speech acts applied in primary school. This study is intended to identify the speech acts performed in primary school, to find the most dominant speech acts performed in elementary school, to give brief description of how speech acts applied in primary school, and to know how to apply the result of the study in English teaching learning to young learners. The speech acts performed in primary school is classified based on Searle‘s theory of speech acts. The most dominant speech acts performed in primary school is Directive (41.17%, the second speech act mostly performed is Declarative (33.33%, the third speech act mostly performed is Representative and Expressive (each 11.76%, and the least speech act performed is Commisive (1.9%. The speech acts performed in elementary school is applied on the context of situation determined by the National Education Standards Agency (BSNP. The speech acts performed in fourth grade have to be applied in the context of classroom, and the speech acts performed in fifth grade have to be applied in the context of school, whereas the speech acts performed in sixth grade have to be applied in the context of the students‘ surroundings. The result of this study is highy expected to give significant contribution to English teaching learning to young learners. By acknowledging the characteristics of young learners, the way they learn English as a foreign language, the teachers are expected to have inventive strategies and various techniques to create a fun and condusive atmosphere in English class.

  18. PSYCHOLINGUISTIC APPROACH TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING

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    Victoria Vadimovna Dobrova

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available The study of verbal behavior in a foreign language with the complex of methods of different sciences is the up-to-date task of scientific knowledge. The study of the ability to learn foreign languages is conducted with the help of psycholinguistic methods on the basis of contracted forms of communication, considering individual characteristics of speakers as well as level of their language culture, semantics and elements of their speech. The carried empirical study allows to say that there is the dependence of individual characteristics, motivation of communication, communicative skills of participants of communication and presence of various semantic and syntactic types of contracted forms in the dialogue.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-8-26

  19. The Ukraine Crisis Reflections in the Speeches of USA and Russian Political Leaders

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    Unikaitė-Jakuntavičienė Ingrida

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper focuses on the rhetoric of USA and Russian political leaders during the Ukraine crisis by analyzing changes appearing in their speeches during the different stages of the crisis. The goal of the analysis is to investigate the speeches delivered by political leaders of the United States and Russia, being important actors in the Ukraine crisis, by identifying both countries’ attitudes to one another, further intentions regarding the management of the crisis and changes of topics in each stage. The speeches of the following most influential politicians in foreign policy formation in the USA and Russia are analyzed: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden, President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. The speeches were collected from the official websites of U.S. and Russian government institutions. The analysis revealed that from the beginning of the crisis the main tool in the Ukraine crisis was rhetoric. Western parties began to take real actions only later: sanctions on Russia were imposed, international organizations started to play more active role, ceasefire agreements were signed. In terms of communications strategies used by both countries, the USA rhetoric and its communication strategy as well as Russian leaders were using a combination of proactive and reactive strategies.

  20. Reading Dilemmas in a Foreign Language Reduces Both Deontological and Utilitarian Response Tendencies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muda, Rafal; Niszczota, Pawel; Bialek, Michal; Conway, Paul

    2018-01-01

    Moral dilemmas entail deciding whether to cause harm to maximize overall outcomes, such as killing 1 person to save 5. Past work has demonstrated that people are more willing to accept causing such outcome-maximizing harm when they read dilemmas in a foreign language they speak rather than their native language. Presumably this effect is due to…

  1. Speech-to-Speech Relay Service

    Science.gov (United States)

    Consumer Guide Speech to Speech Relay Service Speech-to-Speech (STS) is one form of Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS). TRS is a service that allows persons with hearing and speech disabilities ...

  2. BUT IS IT SPEECH? MAKING CRITICAL SENSE OF THE DOMINANT CONSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE ON PORNOGRAPHY, MORALITY AND HARM UNDER THE PERVASIVE INFLUENCE OF UNITED STATES FIRST AMENDMENT JURISPRUDENCE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Letetia van der Poll

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available Under the pervasive influence of United States First Amendment jurisprudence, adult gender-specific sexually explicit (or “pornographic” material is conceptualized, and thus protected in the “marketplace of ideas”, as a particular mode of expression; to be viewed as part of the fabric of an open, free and democratic society. The values which free expression are seen to promote centre upon the advancement of political debate and promotion of personal self-fulfilment and autonomy. Attempts to conceptualise sexually explicit material within a gender-specific human rights framework present distinct challenges which, in a patriarchal legal and political design, appear to be near insurmountable. These challenges seem to be related to the enduring impact of the common law conception of obscenity (with its strong moralistic overtones on the jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court, coupled with a subjective libertarian-inspired test, and the Supreme Court’s general reluctance (also echoed by the South African Constitutional Court to consider a gender-specific conception of harm emanating from feminist arguments premised upon women’s constitutional interests in human dignity, equality and bodily integrity. The social revolution of the 1960s, coupled with the women’s liberation movement, called for a distinct departure from the traditional conception of sexually explicit material as a mode of constitutionally defendable free speech and expression, a conception which unavoidably calls for a moralistic approach, separating acceptable forms of expression from those not deemed worthy of (constitutional protection (termed “obscenity”, specifically created to satisfy the “prurient interest”. The Supreme Court’s obscenity jurisprudence is characterised by two key features. First, the court subscribes to an abstract concept of free speech, which proceeds from the assumption that all speech is of equal value, and thereby surmises

  3. Pragmatics in EFL teaching: how speech acts are addressed in a Brazilian textbook series

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    Tavares, Paulo Ott

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims at discussing and analyzing the approach to speech acts in an EFL textbook series used in Brazilian public schools. In order to do that, the concepts of pragmatics and pragmatic competence, as well as their implications to foreign language (FL teaching, are discussed. Then, a brief review of the Speech Act Theory is presented. After describing the approach to FL teaching proposed by the PCNs and the selection of textbooks through the PNLD, we analyze one series, selected for the 2014-2016 triennium. The conclusion is that speech acts are not deeply approached, but that is in accordance with the goals of the series

  4. Cultural-historical and cognitive approaches to understanding the origins of development of written speech

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    L.F. Obukhova

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available We present an analysis of the emergence and development of written speech, its relationship to the oral speech, connections to the symbolic and modeling activities of preschool children – playing and drawing. While a child's drawing is traditionally interpreted in psychology either as a measure of intellectual development, or as a projective technique, or as a criterion for creative giftedness of the child, in this article, the artistic activity is analyzed as a prerequisite for development of written speech. The article substantiates the hypothesis that the mastery of “picture writing” – the ability to display the verbal content in a schematic picturesque plan – is connected to the success of writing speech at school age. Along with the classical works of L.S. Vygotsky, D.B. Elkonin, A.R. Luria, dedicated to finding the origins of writing, the article presents the current Russian and foreign frameworks of forming the preconditions of writing, based on the concepts of cultural-historical theory (“higher mental functions”, “zone of proximal development”, etc.. In Western psychology, a number of pilot studies used the developmental function of drawing for teaching the written skills to children of 5-7 years old. However, in cognitive psychology, relationship between drawing and writing is most often reduced mainly to the analysis of general motor circuits. Despite the recovery in research on writing and its origins in the last decade, either in domestic or in foreign psychology, the written speech is not a sufficiently studied problem.

  5. An Investigation of Read Speech of Arabic Students Learning Turkish as a Second Language in Terms of Stress and Pause

    Science.gov (United States)

    Derman, Serdar; Bardakçi, Mehmet; Öztürk, Mustafa Serkan

    2017-01-01

    Suprasegmental features are essential in conveying meaning; however, they are one of the neglected topics in teaching Turkish as a foreign/second language. This paper aims to examine read speech by Arabic students learning Turkish as a second language and describe their read speech in terms of stress and pause. Within this framework, 34 Syrian…

  6. Investigating the of Explicit Instruction of Apology Speech Act on Pragmatic Development of Iranian EFL Learners

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    Shima Rajabi

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Learning a foreign language requires students to acquire both grammatical knowledge and socio-pragmatic rules of a language. Pragmatic competence as one of the most difficult aspects of language provides several challenges to L2 learners in the process of learning a foreign language. To overcome this problem, EFL teachers should find the most effective way of teaching pragmatic knowledge to their students. Accordingly, the present study investigated the effect of explicit teaching of apology speech act, as an aspect of pragmatic competence, on the Iranian EFL learners’ appropriate use of the mentioned speech act. In so doing, a total of 73 EFL students at intermediate and advanced levels participated in a pre-posttest design research with experimental and control group. Data were collected using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT. The selection of apologetic situations in DCT was based on two variables of social status and social distance. The results revealed that explicit instruction was a facilitative tool that helped students use the proper apology strategies in different situations. Moreover, it was found that L2 proficiency had a significant influence on overall appropriateness of speech act production. Keywords: Explicit instruction; Apology speech act;   Pragmatic competence; Iranian EFL learners

  7. Does Female Leadership Matter? An Analysis of Swedish Foreign Ministers and their Parliamentary Speeches, 1955–2016

    OpenAIRE

    Bäck, Hanna; Björkdahl, Annika

    2017-01-01

    The current Swedish Foreign Minister, Margot Wallström, has in her foreign policy statement claimed that a feminist foreign policy will be an integral part of activities throughout the Swedish Foreign Service. Even though an explicit ‘feminist foreign policy’ is a rather recent and ‘Swedish’ phenomenon, foreign policies in line with such a general ‘feminist’ agenda may have been implemented throughout history, by various foreign policy leaders. The question is, does the gender of leaders matt...

  8. THE METHODOLOGY OF CASES SELECTION FOR TEACHING FOREGN SPEECH TO THE STUDENTS OF NON-LIGUISTIC SPECIALITIES

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    Tatyana Lozovskaya

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available This article deals with the advantages of case-study and its potential in forming the motivation for studying the English language for students of non-linguistic specialities, psychology students in particular. Training future psychologists foreign language communication should involve cases, published in foreign periodicals, and numerous exercises and communicative tasks according to the requirements of the case-technology which is used during their learning process. The studies enable to single out the main criteria of cases selection for the successful formation of foreign speech with the students of psychological faculty.

  9. The Wildcat Corpus of Native- and Foreign-Accented English: Communicative Efficiency across Conversational Dyads with Varying Language Alignment Profiles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Engen, Kristin J.; Baese-Berk, Melissa; Baker, Rachel E.; Choi, Arim; Kim, Midam; Bradlow, Ann R.

    2010-01-01

    This paper describes the development of the Wildcat Corpus of native- and foreign-accented English, a corpus containing scripted and spontaneous speech recordings from 24 native speakers of American English and 52 non-native speakers of English. The core element of this corpus is a set of spontaneous speech recordings, for which a new method of…

  10. Individual differences in speech imitation/pronunciation aptitude in late bilinguals: functional neuro-imaging and brain morphology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Susanne Maria Reiterer

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available An unanswered question in adult language learning or late bi- and multilingualism is why individuals show marked differences in their ability to imitate foreign accents. While recent research acknowledges that more adults than previously assumed can still acquire a native foreign accent, very little is known about the neuro-cognitive correlates of this special ability. We investigated 140 German speaking individuals displaying varying degrees of mimicking capacity, based on natural language text, sentence and word imitations either in their second language English or in Hindi and Tamil, languages they had never been exposed to. The large subject pool was extensively controlled for previous language experience prior to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI. The late-onset (around 10 years bilinguals showed significant individual differences as to how they employed their left-hemisphere speech areas: higher hemodynamic activation in a distinct fronto-parietal network accompanied low ability, while high ability paralleled enhanced gray matter volume in these areas concomitant with decreased hemodynamic responses. Finally and unexpectedly, males were found to be more talented foreign speech mimics.

  11. An analysis of machine translation and speech synthesis in speech-to-speech translation system

    OpenAIRE

    Hashimoto, K.; Yamagishi, J.; Byrne, W.; King, S.; Tokuda, K.

    2011-01-01

    This paper provides an analysis of the impacts of machine translation and speech synthesis on speech-to-speech translation systems. The speech-to-speech translation system consists of three components: speech recognition, machine translation and speech synthesis. Many techniques for integration of speech recognition and machine translation have been proposed. However, speech synthesis has not yet been considered. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on machine translation and speech synthesis, ...

  12. Experiments on Automatic Recognition of Nonnative Arabic Speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Douglas O'Shaughnessy

    2008-05-01

    Full Text Available The automatic recognition of foreign-accented Arabic speech is a challenging task since it involves a large number of nonnative accents. As well, the nonnative speech data available for training are generally insufficient. Moreover, as compared to other languages, the Arabic language has sparked a relatively small number of research efforts. In this paper, we are concerned with the problem of nonnative speech in a speaker independent, large-vocabulary speech recognition system for modern standard Arabic (MSA. We analyze some major differences at the phonetic level in order to determine which phonemes have a significant part in the recognition performance for both native and nonnative speakers. Special attention is given to specific Arabic phonemes. The performance of an HMM-based Arabic speech recognition system is analyzed with respect to speaker gender and its native origin. The WestPoint modern standard Arabic database from the language data consortium (LDC and the hidden Markov Model Toolkit (HTK are used throughout all experiments. Our study shows that the best performance in the overall phoneme recognition is obtained when nonnative speakers are involved in both training and testing phases. This is not the case when a language model and phonetic lattice networks are incorporated in the system. At the phonetic level, the results show that female nonnative speakers perform better than nonnative male speakers, and that emphatic phonemes yield a significant decrease in performance when they are uttered by both male and female nonnative speakers.

  13. Experiments on Automatic Recognition of Nonnative Arabic Speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Selouani Sid-Ahmed

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available The automatic recognition of foreign-accented Arabic speech is a challenging task since it involves a large number of nonnative accents. As well, the nonnative speech data available for training are generally insufficient. Moreover, as compared to other languages, the Arabic language has sparked a relatively small number of research efforts. In this paper, we are concerned with the problem of nonnative speech in a speaker independent, large-vocabulary speech recognition system for modern standard Arabic (MSA. We analyze some major differences at the phonetic level in order to determine which phonemes have a significant part in the recognition performance for both native and nonnative speakers. Special attention is given to specific Arabic phonemes. The performance of an HMM-based Arabic speech recognition system is analyzed with respect to speaker gender and its native origin. The WestPoint modern standard Arabic database from the language data consortium (LDC and the hidden Markov Model Toolkit (HTK are used throughout all experiments. Our study shows that the best performance in the overall phoneme recognition is obtained when nonnative speakers are involved in both training and testing phases. This is not the case when a language model and phonetic lattice networks are incorporated in the system. At the phonetic level, the results show that female nonnative speakers perform better than nonnative male speakers, and that emphatic phonemes yield a significant decrease in performance when they are uttered by both male and female nonnative speakers.

  14. Use of Authentic-Speech Technique for Teaching Sound Recognition to EFL Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sersen, William J.

    2011-01-01

    The main objective of this research was to test an authentic-speech technique for improving the sound-recognition skills of EFL (English as a foreign language) students at Roi-Et Rajabhat University. The secondary objective was to determine the correlation, if any, between students' self-evaluation of sound-recognition progress and the actual…

  15. Words of foreign origin in political discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sabina Zorčič

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper discusses the use of words of foreign origin in Slovenian political discourse. At the outset, this usage is broken down into four groups: the first contains specific phrases and terminology inherent to the political domain; the second contains words of foreign origin generally present in the Slovene language (because of their high frequency of nonexclusivistic use, these words are not of interest to the scope of this investigation; the third contains various words of foreign origin used as affectional packaging for messages with the aim of stimulating the desired interpretation (framing reality; the fourth group, which is the most interesting for our research, is made up of words of foreign origin which could have a marker: + marked, + not necessary, + unwanted, but only if we accept the logic of purism. All the words in this group could be replaced - without any loss of meaning - with their Slovene equivalents. The speakerʼs motivation for using the foreign word is crucial to our discussion. In the framework of Pierre Bourdieuʼs poststructural theory as well as Austinʼs and Searleʼs speech act theory, statistical data is analysed to observe how usage frequency varies in correlation with selected factors which manifest the speakerʼs habitus. We argue that words of foreign origin represent symbolic cultural capital, a kind of added value which functions as credit and as such is an important form of the accumulation of capital.

  16. Automatic detection of hate speech in text: an overview of the topic and dataset annotation with hierarchical classes

    OpenAIRE

    Paula Cristina Teixeira Fortuna

    2017-01-01

    Nowadays people are using more and more social networks to communicate their opinions, share information and experiences. In social networks people have the feeling of being deindividualized and can incur more frequently in aggressive communication. In this context, it is important that government and social networks platforms have tools to detect hate speech because it is harmful to its targets. In our work we investigate the problem of detecting hate speech online. Our first goal is to make...

  17. Neural Entrainment to Speech Modulates Speech Intelligibility

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Riecke, Lars; Formisano, Elia; Sorger, Bettina; Baskent, Deniz; Gaudrain, Etienne

    2018-01-01

    Speech is crucial for communication in everyday life. Speech-brain entrainment, the alignment of neural activity to the slow temporal fluctuations (envelope) of acoustic speech input, is a ubiquitous element of current theories of speech processing. Associations between speech-brain entrainment and

  18. Lexical retrieval stages of momentarily inaccessible foreign language words

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter Ecke

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available The acquisition of foreign language (FL vocabulary involves two aspects: (1 learning to recognize a word’s meaning, and (2 becoming able to retrieve or produce the word’s form in speech production. The second aspect usually takes more time and practice to be developed. While learners may have no problem understanding a FL word’s meaning, they frequently are unable to recall the word when necessary.

  19. Unconscious improvement in foreign language learning using mismatch negativity neurofeedback: A preliminary study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ming Chang

    Full Text Available When people learn foreign languages, they find it difficult to perceive speech sounds that are nonexistent in their native language, and extensive training is consequently necessary. Our previous studies have shown that by using neurofeedback based on the mismatch negativity event-related brain potential, participants could unconsciously achieve learning in the auditory discrimination of pure tones that could not be consciously discriminated without the neurofeedback. Here, we examined whether mismatch negativity neurofeedback is effective for helping someone to perceive new speech sounds in foreign language learning. We developed a task for training native Japanese speakers to discriminate between 'l' and 'r' sounds in English, as they usually cannot discriminate between these two sounds. Without participants attending to auditory stimuli or being aware of the nature of the experiment, neurofeedback training helped them to achieve significant improvement in unconscious auditory discrimination and recognition of the target words 'light' and 'right'. There was also improvement in the recognition of other words containing 'l' and 'r' (e.g., 'blight' and 'bright', even though these words had not been presented during training. This method could be used to facilitate foreign language learning and can be extended to other fields of auditory and clinical research and even other senses.

  20. Words of foreign origin in political discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sabina Zorčič

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper discusses the use of words of foreign origin in Slovenian political discourse. At the outset, this usage is broken down into four groups: the first contains specific phrases and terminology inherent to the political domain; the second contains words of foreign origin generally present in the Slovene language (because of their high frequency of nonexclusivistic use, these words are not of interest to the scope of this investigation; the third contains various words of foreign origin used as affectional packaging for messages with the aim of stimulating the desired interpretation (framing reality; the fourth group, which is the most interesting for our research, is made up of words of foreign origin which could have a marker: + marked, + not necessary, + unwanted, but only if we accept the logic of purism. All the words in this group could be replaced - without any loss of meaning - with their Slovene equivalents. The speakerʼs motivation for using the foreign word is crucial to our discussion. In the framework of Pierre Bourdieuʼs poststructural theory as well as Austinʼs and Searleʼs speech act theory, statistical data is analysed to observe how usage frequency varies in correlation with selected factors which manifest the speakerʼs habitus. We argue that words of foreign origin represent symbolic cultural capital, a kind of added value which functions as credit and as such is an important form of the accumulation of capital.       

  1. FEATURES OF FOREIGN STUDENTS PRE-UNIVERSITY MATHEMATICAL TRAINING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Наталья Александровна Пыхтина

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The aim of improving the international competitiveness of the higher education Russian system at the global level by increasing the number of foreign students leads to the fact, that pre-university training is becoming essential for next years at higher educational programmes.Pre-university mathematical training of international students contributes to the scientific style formation of speech skills, which is so useful in higher educational institute. This article highlights some of the features of foreign students pre-university mathematical training.Design of “Mathematics” course methodical ware for preparatory departments of higher educational institutions is an important element of the educational process. Features of mathematics teaching are shown by the example of such important for foreign students pre-university mathematical training branch of mathematics like the set theory.The article also gives consideration to such aspects of mathematics teaching for foreign students as the inclusion of text mathematical problems in the “Mathematics” course programme for helping to achieve lexical skills and abilities, as well as the organization of individual work of the students with the use of information and communication technologies.The paper refers to the collection of exercises and tasks for the “Mathematics” course for foreign citizens studying at the preparatory departments of higher educational institutions, it additionally gives the themes of the course.

  2. Teaching Pragmatics in the Foreign Language Classroom: Grammar as a Communicative Resource

    Science.gov (United States)

    Felix-Brasdefer, J. Cesar; Cohen, Andrew D.

    2012-01-01

    This article focuses on the teaching of pragmatics in the Spanish as a Foreign Language classroom and examines the role of grammar as a communicative resource. It also aims to highlight the importance of teaching pragmatics from beginning levels of language instruction, with the spotlight on speech acts at the discourse level. After the concept of…

  3. Looking good but doing harm? Perceptions of short-term medical missions in Nicaragua.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nouvet, Elysée; Chan, Elizabeth; Schwartz, Lisa J

    2018-04-01

    In this paper, we present findings from a qualitative study that gathered Nicaraguans' perceptions of short-term foreign medical missions, towards deepening the understanding of what Nicaraguans value or find limited in the work of such foreign missions operating in their country. Fifty-two interviews were conducted with patients, relatives of patients, Nicaraguan physicians and nurses who partnered with or observed missions at work, 'beneficiary' community leaders, and individuals who were unable or unwilling to access mission-provided healthcare. Factors underlying participants' positive and more critical accounts of foreign primary and surgical missions are described and analysed. Empirical investigation on how, whether or not, or on what bases short-term medical missions (STMs) have been perceived as beneficial, harmful, or otherwise by those on the receiving end of these efforts is limited. This study aims to contribute to the evidence base for reflecting on the ethical performance of trans-national STMs.

  4. The Affordance of Speech Recognition Technology for EFL Learning in an Elementary School Setting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liaw, Meei-Ling

    2014-01-01

    This study examined the use of speech recognition (SR) technology to support a group of elementary school children's learning of English as a foreign language (EFL). SR technology has been used in various language learning contexts. Its application to EFL teaching and learning is still relatively recent, but a solid understanding of its…

  5. User Experience of a Mobile Speaking Application with Automatic Speech Recognition for EFL Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahn, Tae youn; Lee, Sangmin-Michelle

    2016-01-01

    With the spread of mobile devices, mobile phones have enormous potential regarding their pedagogical use in language education. The goal of this study is to analyse user experience of a mobile-based learning system that is enhanced by speech recognition technology for the improvement of EFL (English as a foreign language) learners' speaking…

  6. Self-harm.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skegg, Keren

    The term self-harm is commonly used to describe a wide range of behaviours and intentions including attempted hanging, impulsive self-poisoning, and superficial cutting in response to intolerable tension. As with suicide, rates of self-harm vary greatly between countries. 5-9% of adolescents in western countries report having self-harmed within the previous year. Risk factors include socioeconomic disadvantage, and psychiatric illness--particularly depression, substance abuse, and anxiety disorders. Cultural aspects of some societies may protect against suicide and self-harm and explain some of the international variation in rates of these events. Risk of repetition of self-harm and of later suicide is high. More than 5% of people who have been seen at a hospital after self-harm will have committed suicide within 9 years. Assessment after self-harm includes careful consideration of the patient's intent and beliefs about the lethality of the method used. Strong suicidal intent, high lethality, precautions against being discovered, and psychiatric illness are indicators of high suicide risk. Management after self-harm includes forming a trusting relationship with the patient, jointly identifying problems, ensuring support is available in a crisis, and treating psychiatric illness vigorously. Family and friends may also provide support. Large-scale studies of treatments for specific subgroups of people who self-harm might help to identify more effective treatments than are currently available. Although risk factors for self-harm are well established, aspects that protect people from engaging in self-harm need to be further explored.

  7. Inner Speech's Relationship With Overt Speech in Poststroke Aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stark, Brielle C; Geva, Sharon; Warburton, Elizabeth A

    2017-09-18

    Relatively preserved inner speech alongside poor overt speech has been documented in some persons with aphasia (PWA), but the relationship of overt speech with inner speech is still largely unclear, as few studies have directly investigated these factors. The present study investigates the relationship of relatively preserved inner speech in aphasia with selected measures of language and cognition. Thirty-eight persons with chronic aphasia (27 men, 11 women; average age 64.53 ± 13.29 years, time since stroke 8-111 months) were classified as having relatively preserved inner and overt speech (n = 21), relatively preserved inner speech with poor overt speech (n = 8), or not classified due to insufficient measurements of inner and/or overt speech (n = 9). Inner speech scores (by group) were correlated with selected measures of language and cognition from the Comprehensive Aphasia Test (Swinburn, Porter, & Al, 2004). The group with poor overt speech showed a significant relationship of inner speech with overt naming (r = .95, p speech and language and cognition factors were not significant for the group with relatively good overt speech. As in previous research, we show that relatively preserved inner speech is found alongside otherwise severe production deficits in PWA. PWA with poor overt speech may rely more on preserved inner speech for overt picture naming (perhaps due to shared resources with verbal working memory) and for written picture description (perhaps due to reliance on inner speech due to perceived task difficulty). Assessments of inner speech may be useful as a standard component of aphasia screening, and therapy focused on improving and using inner speech may prove clinically worthwhile. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5303542.

  8. Prison suicides and self-harming behaviours in Italy, 1990-2002.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Preti, Antonio; Cascio, Maria Teresa

    2006-04-01

    Data on suicides, attempted suicides and other self-harming behaviours that occurred in Italian prisons from 1990 to 2002 was studied on official records, as documented by the Ministry of Justice. Over the study interval, completed suicide rates in Italian prisons were constantly about ten times higher than among the general population, but over time they did not increase significantly despite nearly a doubling in the absolute number of inmates. The rate of completed suicides in overcrowded prisons was about ten times higher than in non-overcrowded ones. Attempted suicides were about ten times higher than completed suicides, with females being significantly more likely to attempt to take their own lives and males being more likely to complete suicide. Self-injuring acts without the intent to die involve about one in every ten individuals, with foreigners (non-EU citizens mostly) being twice as likely to self-harm than residents. A better identification of the people suffering from mental disorders and a reduction in prison overcrowding are two key issues that need to be implemented to reduce the impact of suicide and self-harming behaviours among convicts.

  9. Developing the Bilingual Competence in Learning Foreign Languages

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    T. A. Znamenskaya

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper considers the problem of bilingualism and its effect on the personality of the speaker. Various types of bilingualism are described along with the factors determining the bilingual competence formation: age, individual experience, socio-cultural conditions of the native and foreign language interaction. The author points out both the positive and negative impact on the native language as the result of the second language learning. The special emphasis is on language interference in the process of learning a foreign language. To make sure the students achieve the adequate degree of its authenticity, and therefore the bilingual competence, the teacher should take into account the specificity of national styles, communicative strategies and speech tactics of both languages. A comparative analysis of linguistic differences of the English and Russian languages is demonstrated on the level of phonetics, vocabulary, grammar and national communicative stylistics. The author maintains that successful inter-language and cross-cultural communication requires the integrative cross-disciplinary approach, consolidation of the linguistic theory and methods of foreign language teaching. 

  10. Musician advantage for speech-on-speech perception

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Başkent, Deniz; Gaudrain, Etienne

    Evidence for transfer of musical training to better perception of speech in noise has been mixed. Unlike speech-in-noise, speech-on-speech perception utilizes many of the skills that musical training improves, such as better pitch perception and stream segregation, as well as use of higher-level

  11. INTEGRATING MACHINE TRANSLATION AND SPEECH SYNTHESIS COMPONENT FOR ENGLISH TO DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGE SPEECH TO SPEECH TRANSLATION SYSTEM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. SANGEETHA

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available This paper provides an interface between the machine translation and speech synthesis system for converting English speech to Tamil text in English to Tamil speech to speech translation system. The speech translation system consists of three modules: automatic speech recognition, machine translation and text to speech synthesis. Many procedures for incorporation of speech recognition and machine translation have been projected. Still speech synthesis system has not yet been measured. In this paper, we focus on integration of machine translation and speech synthesis, and report a subjective evaluation to investigate the impact of speech synthesis, machine translation and the integration of machine translation and speech synthesis components. Here we implement a hybrid machine translation (combination of rule based and statistical machine translation and concatenative syllable based speech synthesis technique. In order to retain the naturalness and intelligibility of synthesized speech Auto Associative Neural Network (AANN prosody prediction is used in this work. The results of this system investigation demonstrate that the naturalness and intelligibility of the synthesized speech are strongly influenced by the fluency and correctness of the translated text.

  12. INTERACTION LEVEL OF SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN A COURSEBOOK SERIES OF TEACHING TURKISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

    OpenAIRE

    YAVUZ KIRIK, Muazzez

    2015-01-01

    Informed by the principles of communicative foreign language teaching, this study focuses on the interaction level of speaking activities in the coursebook series of ‘İstanbul- Yabancılar İçin Türkçe Ders Kitabı’. To this end, the study analyzed firstly the rate of two-way speech to one-way speech among speaking activities and then the characteristics of two-way activities were explored with a focus on their compatibility with the nature of real interaction as described in the relevant litera...

  13. Self-harm and overcrowding among prisoners in Geneva, Switzerland.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolff, Hans; Casillas, Alejandra; Perneger, Thomas; Heller, Patrick; Golay, Diane; Mouton, Elisabeth; Bodenmann, Patrick; Getaz, Laurent

    2016-01-01

    Prison institutional conditions affect risk for self-harm among detainees. In particular, prison overcrowding may increase the likelihood of self-harm by creating competition for resources, space, and enhancing a "deprivation state." The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between overcrowding and prisoner acts of self-harm. This cross-sectional study took place at Geneva's pre-trial prison (capacity:376) between 2006 and 2014. Outcomes were acts of self-harm that required medical attention, and self-strangulation/hanging events (combined into one group, as these are difficult to differentiate). Dichotomous predictors were overcrowding index- annual mean daily population divided by capacity ( > 200 percent vs prison change in gender, area of origin, foreign residency, religion, or psychiatric treatment. The present study is limited by the definition and identification of self-harm. The distinction between self-strangulation and self-hanging, and the precise classification of an intent to die is difficult to make in practice, especially with limited prison data records available. The relevant literature addresses the complexity of the association between non-suicidal and suicidal behavior. Despite this, the combined category self-strangulations/hangings gives some indication of severe self-harm events, especially since the methodology of categorization employed was consistent throughout the entire period of the study. Other limitations include the small sample size and the lack of individual patient data and prison data to help control for confounding factors. Despite these drawbacks, pertinent data (socio-demographics and number of prisoners treated for mental health and drug abuse) remained stable over the years. Thus, there are no apparent changes in the inmate population that could be linked to an increase in self-harm. High-security placements and mean prisoner stay have increased over time, with a decrease in staff to prisoner ratio - and these

  14. Speech endpoint detection with non-language speech sounds for generic speech processing applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    McClain, Matthew; Romanowski, Brian

    2009-05-01

    Non-language speech sounds (NLSS) are sounds produced by humans that do not carry linguistic information. Examples of these sounds are coughs, clicks, breaths, and filled pauses such as "uh" and "um" in English. NLSS are prominent in conversational speech, but can be a significant source of errors in speech processing applications. Traditionally, these sounds are ignored by speech endpoint detection algorithms, where speech regions are identified in the audio signal prior to processing. The ability to filter NLSS as a pre-processing step can significantly enhance the performance of many speech processing applications, such as speaker identification, language identification, and automatic speech recognition. In order to be used in all such applications, NLSS detection must be performed without the use of language models that provide knowledge of the phonology and lexical structure of speech. This is especially relevant to situations where the languages used in the audio are not known apriori. We present the results of preliminary experiments using data from American and British English speakers, in which segments of audio are classified as language speech sounds (LSS) or NLSS using a set of acoustic features designed for language-agnostic NLSS detection and a hidden-Markov model (HMM) to model speech generation. The results of these experiments indicate that the features and model used are capable of detection certain types of NLSS, such as breaths and clicks, while detection of other types of NLSS such as filled pauses will require future research.

  15. Harmful Waste Process

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ki, Mun Bong; Lee, Shi Jin; Park, Jun Seok; Yoon, Seok Pyo; Lee, Jae Hyo; Jo, Byeong Ryeol

    2008-08-01

    This book gives descriptions of processing harmful waste, including concerned law and definition of harmful waste, current conditions and generation of harmful waste in Korea, international condition of harmful waste, minimizing of generation of harmful waste, treatment and storage. It also tells of basic science for harmful waste disposal with physics, chemistry, combustion engineering, microbiology and technique of disposal such as physical, chemical, biological process, stabilizing and solidification, incineration and waste in landfill.

  16. Harmful Effects of Nanoparticles on Animals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jean-Marie Exbrayat

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Since several years nanoparticles (NPs are produced by industries and used in several fields of activities. They are finally found in aquatic and terrestrial environments, where they are ingested by living organisms in which they accumulate, before being eliminated. In organisms, NPs represent foreign elements with their own physicochemical properties due to their small size. So NPs may interfere with the normal physiological mechanisms of the embryos, growing animals, and adults, and it is indispensable to understand their potentially direct or indirect harmful effects on living organisms. It has been already shown that NPs could be toxic to bacteria, algae, invertebrates, and vertebrates. In this review, several examples of recent studies are given. We will examine successively the effects of NPs on terrestrial and semiaquatic and aquatic vertebrate and invertebrate animals.

  17. Children and Foreign Languages. European Teachers' Seminar (Zagreb, Croatia, May 4-7, 1994). Report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vilke, Mirjana

    A 4-day inservice teacher workshop, held so that teachers from a number of countries could share ideas and experiences about foreign language teaching at the elementary school level, is described. Speeches and events of each day are summarized briefly, and plenary sessions are chronicled in somewhat more detail. The latter include: a description…

  18. L’odio proibito: la repressione giuridica dello hate speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gianmarco Gometz

    2017-10-01

    ABSTRACT: The aim of this article is two-folded. First, it offers a general overview of the legal repression of various categories of expressive behaviours ascribed to the notion of hate speech. Especially in Europe, such repression often passes through criminalization, long since used by law to suppress thoughts or points of view for some reason considered harmful. The social groups nowadays protected by such repressive measures, however, are different from the past: weak and/or minoritarian groups rather than strong and/or majoritarian ones. The second aim of this work is to identify the reasons for the legal repression of expressions, beliefs or doctrines certainly in many cases morally deplorable, yet protected by other high-ranking legal reasons: the principles of freedom of thought and speech. It will be noted that especially for untargeted hate speech not connected to a clear and present danger of unlawful actions, there is no general agreement about those reasons. Furthermore, they tend to be structured in justifications showing some typical flaws of, respectively, deontological and teleological reasoning: the former tend to be superficial as apodictic, generic and vacuous; the latter tend to evade the argumentative burdens of factual order from which their validity depends.

  19. The Posterior Fossa and Foreign Accent Syndrome : Report of Two New Cases and Review of the Literature

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Keulen, Stefanie; Mariën, Peter; van Dun, Kim; Bastiaanse, Roelien; Manto, Mario; Verhoeven, Jo

    Foreign accent syndrome is a rare motor speech disorder that causes patients to speak their language with a non-native accent. In the neurogenic condition, the disorder develops after lesions in the language dominant hemisphere, often affecting Broca's area, the insula, the supplementary motor area

  20. Music and Speech Perception in Children Using Sung Speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nie, Yingjiu; Galvin, John J; Morikawa, Michael; André, Victoria; Wheeler, Harley; Fu, Qian-Jie

    2018-01-01

    This study examined music and speech perception in normal-hearing children with some or no musical training. Thirty children (mean age = 11.3 years), 15 with and 15 without formal music training participated in the study. Music perception was measured using a melodic contour identification (MCI) task; stimuli were a piano sample or sung speech with a fixed timbre (same word for each note) or a mixed timbre (different words for each note). Speech perception was measured in quiet and in steady noise using a matrix-styled sentence recognition task; stimuli were naturally intonated speech or sung speech with a fixed pitch (same note for each word) or a mixed pitch (different notes for each word). Significant musician advantages were observed for MCI and speech in noise but not for speech in quiet. MCI performance was significantly poorer with the mixed timbre stimuli. Speech performance in noise was significantly poorer with the fixed or mixed pitch stimuli than with spoken speech. Across all subjects, age at testing and MCI performance were significantly correlated with speech performance in noise. MCI and speech performance in quiet was significantly poorer for children than for adults from a related study using the same stimuli and tasks; speech performance in noise was significantly poorer for young than for older children. Long-term music training appeared to benefit melodic pitch perception and speech understanding in noise in these pediatric listeners.

  1. Brazilian foreign affairs: social capital and the democratic discourse in South America

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rafael Duarte Villa

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Brazilian elites as well as foreign policy-makers have long shared a common belief that the ideas of democracy and democratization should serve as some "road map" to foreign policy-making. In areas such as security, regional integration, and disarmament, the goal has been to generate a positive social capital as well as to build trusting relations with Brazilian neighbors in South America. Therefore, under the impact of ideas brought about by new world visions, Brazilian foreign policy has changed a domestic policy feature - the democratic rearrangement of the political system - into a condition and resource for foreign policy-making towards South America. The result has been a fine improvement of Brazilian image and credibility in the regional South American scenario. In other words, there has been a significant increment in "trust" towards Brazil. This argument has been developed based on extracts and transcripts from official diplomatic speeches from Brazilian foreign policy-makers as well as a historical reconstruction of Brazil's diplomatic relations with two South American countries. Our study was based on two cases: Brazilian-Venezuelan and Brazilian-Argentine relations in the 80's and the 90's.

  2. Learning foreign sounds in an alien world: videogame training improves non-native speech categorization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lim, Sung-joo; Holt, Lori L

    2011-01-01

    Although speech categories are defined by multiple acoustic dimensions, some are perceptually weighted more than others and there are residual effects of native-language weightings in non-native speech perception. Recent research on nonlinguistic sound category learning suggests that the distribution characteristics of experienced sounds influence perceptual cue weights: Increasing variability across a dimension leads listeners to rely upon it less in subsequent category learning (Holt & Lotto, 2006). The present experiment investigated the implications of this among native Japanese learning English /r/-/l/ categories. Training was accomplished using a videogame paradigm that emphasizes associations among sound categories, visual information, and players' responses to videogame characters rather than overt categorization or explicit feedback. Subjects who played the game for 2.5h across 5 days exhibited improvements in /r/-/l/ perception on par with 2-4 weeks of explicit categorization training in previous research and exhibited a shift toward more native-like perceptual cue weights. Copyright © 2011 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  3. Apraxia of Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Health Info » Voice, Speech, and Language Apraxia of Speech On this page: What is apraxia of speech? ... about apraxia of speech? What is apraxia of speech? Apraxia of speech (AOS)—also known as acquired ...

  4. A CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE HATE SPEECH PROVISIONS OF THE EQUALITY ACT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria Marais

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The article presents a detailed contextual analysis of the categorical prohibition of hate speech in terms of section 10(1 of the Equality Act. It is argued that this provision is not primarily intended to describe and effectively regulate the extreme expression that falls within the narrow ambit of "hate speech" as defined in section 16(2(c of the Constitution. Rather, it is concerned with the promotion of equality in the broad societal context. It acknowledges the hurt and harm that discriminatory expression may entail and it condemns the reinforcement of systemic discrimination by means of expression. Therefore, the principal interpretive frame of reference for the analysis of section 10(1 of the Equality Act is the explicit constitutional obligation in terms of sections 9(3 and (4 of the Constitution to enact legislation to prevent and prohibit unfair discrimination, and not section 16(2(c of the Constitution. The fact that section 10(1 categorically prohibits hate speech, instead of premising its prohibition on the unfairness analysis generally applicable to discrimination in other contexts, however, implies that only expression with no reasonable prospect of meeting the constitutional fairness standard ought to be covered by section 10. Put differently, the prohibited expression may in no way promote rather than jeopardise the achievement of equality. The interpretation takes into account that section 10(1 applies only to engagement in expression that, in terms of an objective reasonableness assessment, is clearly primarily aimed at hurting or harming others, or at inciting others to hurt or harm, or at promoting hatred based on group identity. Furthermore, bona fide expression in accordance with the essential characteristics of the freedoms of expression mentioned in section 16(1 of the Constitution is explicitly excluded from its ambit. An analysis of the expression covered by section 10(1 leads to a conclusion that it prohibits only low

  5. Psychogenic Foreign Accent Syndrome: a new case

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stefanie eKeulen

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the case of a 33-year-old, right-handed, French-speaking Belgian lady who was involved in a car accident as a pedestrian. Six months after the incident she developed a German/Flemish-like accent. The patient’s medical history, the onset of the FAS and the possible psychological causes of the accent change are analyzed. Relevant neuropsychological, neurolinguistic and psychodiagnostic test results are presented and discussed. The psychodiagnostic interview and testing will receive special attention, because these have been underreported in previous FAS case reports. Furthermore, an accent rating experiment was carried out in order to assess the foreign quality of the patient’s speech. Pre- and post-morbid spontaneous speech samples were analyzed phonetically to identify the pronunciation characteristics associated with this type of FAS. Several findings were considered essential in the diagnosis of psychogenic FAS: the psychological assessments as well as the clinical interview confirmed the presence of psychological problems, while neurological damage was excluded by means of repeated neuroimaging and neurological examinations. The type and nature of the speech symptoms and the accent fluctuations associated with the patient's psychological state cannot be explained by a neurological disorder. Moreover, the indifference of the patient towards her condition may also suggest a psychogenic etiology, as the opposite is usually observed in neurogenic FAS patients.

  6. Self-harm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Self-harm refers to a person's harming their own body on purpose. About 1 in 100 people hurts himself or herself in this way. More females hurt themselves than males. A person who self-harms usually does not mean to kill himself or herself. But they are at higher risk of attempting suicide if they do ...

  7. The Mexico City Policy: a "gag rule" that violates free speech and democratic values.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohen, S A

    1998-04-01

    With the support of the Republican leadership of the US House of Representatives, Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey continues to attempt to limit provision of US family planning (FP) funding to foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who agree to enforce absolute prohibitions on engaging in abortion-related activities. Despite the fact that the House is withholding funds to meet US obligations to the UN and to support the International Monetary Fund, US President Clinton refuses to give in to pressure to enforce what amounts to a "gag rule." The Secretary of State explains that Clinton has no intention of punishing organizations engaging in free-speech protected democratic activities in foreign countries. Smith has offered a self-styled "compromise" that would allow Clinton to waive disqualification for a foreign NGO offering abortion services with its own funds in compliance with the laws of its country. This waiver would penalize the international FP program by $44 million and would not apply to the broad prohibitions against abortion lobbying (including lobbying for changes in laws, sponsoring conferences and workshops on "alleged" defects in abortion laws, and drafting and distributing materials or public statements on "alleged defects"). Smith's emphasis on the "lobbying" ban has widened the issue from a debate on abortion to a debate on democracy and free speech. Opposition to Smith's proposal is, thus, rising in many quarters. Smith also endorses withholding US contributions to the UN Population Fund because the fund has resumed work in China.

  8. Common neural substrates support speech and non-speech vocal tract gestures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Soo-Eun; Kenney, Mary Kay; Loucks, Torrey M J; Poletto, Christopher J; Ludlow, Christy L

    2009-08-01

    The issue of whether speech is supported by the same neural substrates as non-speech vocal tract gestures has been contentious. In this fMRI study we tested whether producing non-speech vocal tract gestures in humans shares the same functional neuroanatomy as non-sense speech syllables. Production of non-speech vocal tract gestures, devoid of phonological content but similar to speech in that they had familiar acoustic and somatosensory targets, was compared to the production of speech syllables without meaning. Brain activation related to overt production was captured with BOLD fMRI using a sparse sampling design for both conditions. Speech and non-speech were compared using voxel-wise whole brain analyses, and ROI analyses focused on frontal and temporoparietal structures previously reported to support speech production. Results showed substantial activation overlap between speech and non-speech function in regions. Although non-speech gesture production showed greater extent and amplitude of activation in the regions examined, both speech and non-speech showed comparable left laterality in activation for both target perception and production. These findings posit a more general role of the previously proposed "auditory dorsal stream" in the left hemisphere--to support the production of vocal tract gestures that are not limited to speech processing.

  9. Speech Compression

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jerry D. Gibson

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Speech compression is a key technology underlying digital cellular communications, VoIP, voicemail, and voice response systems. We trace the evolution of speech coding based on the linear prediction model, highlight the key milestones in speech coding, and outline the structures of the most important speech coding standards. Current challenges, future research directions, fundamental limits on performance, and the critical open problem of speech coding for emergency first responders are all discussed.

  10. Characterizing Intonation Deficit in Motor Speech Disorders: An Autosegmental-Metrical Analysis of Spontaneous Speech in Hypokinetic Dysarthria, Ataxic Dysarthria, and Foreign Accent Syndrome

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lowit, Anja; Kuschmann, Anja

    2012-01-01

    Purpose: The autosegmental-metrical (AM) framework represents an established methodology for intonational analysis in unimpaired speaker populations but has found little application in describing intonation in motor speech disorders (MSDs). This study compared the intonation patterns of unimpaired participants (CON) and those with Parkinson's…

  11. What’s the Harm? Harms in Research with Adults with Intellectual Disability

    Science.gov (United States)

    McDonald, Katherine E.; Conroy, Nicole E.; Olick, Robert S.

    2017-01-01

    Scientific advances can improve the lives of adults with intellectual disability, yet concerns that research participation may impose harm impede scientific progress. What counts as harmful can be subjective and perceptions of harm may vary among stakeholders. We studied perspectives on the harmfulness of research events among adults with intellectual disability, family members and friends, disability service providers, researchers, and Institutional Review Board members. We found considerable variance. For example, adults with intellectual disability see exclusion from research as more harmful, but most psychosocial harms as less significant than others. All stakeholders agree that having someone else make the participation decision is harmful. Findings provide insights into the concept of harm and ethical research with adults with intellectual disability. PMID:28095059

  12. Endoscopic Management of Foreign Bodies in the Gastrointestinal Tract: A Review of the Literature

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mikhael Bekkerman

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Foreign body ingestion is a common diagnosis that presents in emergency departments throughout the world. Distinct foreign bodies predispose to particular locations of impaction in the gastrointestinal tract, commonly meat boluses in the esophagus above a preexisting esophageal stricture or ring in adults and coins in children. Several other groups are at high risk of foreign body impaction, mentally handicapped individuals or those with psychiatric illness, abusers of drugs or alcohol, and the geriatric population. Patients with foreign body ingestion typically present with odynophagia, dysphagia, sensation of having an object stuck, chest pain, and nausea/vomiting. The majority of foreign bodies pass through the digestive system spontaneously without causing any harm, symptoms, or necessitating any further intervention. A well-documented clinical history and thorough physical exam is critical in making the diagnosis, if additional modalities are needed, a CT scan and diagnostic endoscopy are generally the preferred modalities. Various tools can be used to remove foreign bodies, and endoscopic treatment is safe and effective if performed by a skilled endoscopist.

  13. Popularity and Harms of Aural Foreign Bodies: A Descriptive Study of Patients in Baqiyatallah University Hospital, Tehran, Iran.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taheri, Abolfazl; Mehmandari, Sina Navaei; Shahidi, Mojtaba; Mehdizadeh, Hamidreza; Mirlohi, Seyyed Mohammad Javad; Aref, Nasrin Mohammadi; Avanaki, Mahsa Alborzi; Khosravi, Mohammad Hossein

    2017-12-01

    To evaluate the prevalence of external ear complications among Iranian aural foreign body users attending to otolaryngology clinic of our hospital. In this cross-sectional study patients attending to Otolaryngology clinics of Baqiyatallah hospital were enrolled regardless of their age, gender and reason of attending. Patients between 15 and 60 years of age were included in the present study. Those with positive history of chronic ear diseases, ear surgery, congenital ear disorders, trauma to ear or head and neck region or shock wave trauma were excluded from the study. Demographic information as well as data on chief complaint, educational level, frequency and type of used foreign body and findings of physical examination and Otoscopy by a single otolaryngologist were recorded in a predesigned checklist. Eventually 362 patients (232 male and 130 female) with a mean age of 40.32 ± 16.90 years underwent analysis. Of all patients 244 (67.2%) were using a kind of aural foreign body frequently and Cotton bud was the most popular (63.5%) used foreign body among patients. Drying ear canal was the most common (54.9%) reason of using AFBs among study individuals followed by itching (29.5%) and pyorrhea (11.06%). Also 11 (4.5%) patients were using AFBs as a habit with no specific reason. Itching was the most prevalent symptom reported by both aural foreign body users (78%) and non-users (45.5%); however it was significantly higher among AFB users (p = 0.026). Also hearing loss was significantly more reported by AFB users (p = 0.033). A majority of patients had normal physical examination in both AFB users and non-users group. Inflammation of ear canal was significantly more detected in AFB users (p = 0.004). In addition, rate of right ear wax impaction was higher among AFB users (p = 0.016). In conclusion we realized that 67.2% of patients attending to Otolaryngology clinic of our hospital were using a kind of aural foreign bodies and itching was the most common chief

  14. Speech Production and Speech Discrimination by Hearing-Impaired Children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Novelli-Olmstead, Tina; Ling, Daniel

    1984-01-01

    Seven hearing impaired children (five to seven years old) assigned to the Speakers group made highly significant gains in speech production and auditory discrimination of speech, while Listeners made only slight speech production gains and no gains in auditory discrimination. Combined speech and auditory training was more effective than auditory…

  15. Stuttering Frequency, Speech Rate, Speech Naturalness, and Speech Effort During the Production of Voluntary Stuttering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davidow, Jason H; Grossman, Heather L; Edge, Robin L

    2018-05-01

    Voluntary stuttering techniques involve persons who stutter purposefully interjecting disfluencies into their speech. Little research has been conducted on the impact of these techniques on the speech pattern of persons who stutter. The present study examined whether changes in the frequency of voluntary stuttering accompanied changes in stuttering frequency, articulation rate, speech naturalness, and speech effort. In total, 12 persons who stutter aged 16-34 years participated. Participants read four 300-syllable passages during a control condition, and three voluntary stuttering conditions that involved attempting to produce purposeful, tension-free repetitions of initial sounds or syllables of a word for two or more repetitions (i.e., bouncing). The three voluntary stuttering conditions included bouncing on 5%, 10%, and 15% of syllables read. Friedman tests and follow-up Wilcoxon signed ranks tests were conducted for the statistical analyses. Stuttering frequency, articulation rate, and speech naturalness were significantly different between the voluntary stuttering conditions. Speech effort did not differ between the voluntary stuttering conditions. Stuttering frequency was significantly lower during the three voluntary stuttering conditions compared to the control condition, and speech effort was significantly lower during two of the three voluntary stuttering conditions compared to the control condition. Due to changes in articulation rate across the voluntary stuttering conditions, it is difficult to conclude, as has been suggested previously, that voluntary stuttering is the reason for stuttering reductions found when using voluntary stuttering techniques. Additionally, future investigations should examine different types of voluntary stuttering over an extended period of time to determine their impact on stuttering frequency, speech rate, speech naturalness, and speech effort.

  16. Comprehension of synthetic speech and digitized natural speech by adults with aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hux, Karen; Knollman-Porter, Kelly; Brown, Jessica; Wallace, Sarah E

    2017-09-01

    Using text-to-speech technology to provide simultaneous written and auditory content presentation may help compensate for chronic reading challenges if people with aphasia can understand synthetic speech output; however, inherent auditory comprehension challenges experienced by people with aphasia may make understanding synthetic speech difficult. This study's purpose was to compare the preferences and auditory comprehension accuracy of people with aphasia when listening to sentences generated with digitized natural speech, Alex synthetic speech (i.e., Macintosh platform), or David synthetic speech (i.e., Windows platform). The methodology required each of 20 participants with aphasia to select one of four images corresponding in meaning to each of 60 sentences comprising three stimulus sets. Results revealed significantly better accuracy given digitized natural speech than either synthetic speech option; however, individual participant performance analyses revealed three patterns: (a) comparable accuracy regardless of speech condition for 30% of participants, (b) comparable accuracy between digitized natural speech and one, but not both, synthetic speech option for 45% of participants, and (c) greater accuracy with digitized natural speech than with either synthetic speech option for remaining participants. Ranking and Likert-scale rating data revealed a preference for digitized natural speech and David synthetic speech over Alex synthetic speech. Results suggest many individuals with aphasia can comprehend synthetic speech options available on popular operating systems. Further examination of synthetic speech use to support reading comprehension through text-to-speech technology is thus warranted. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  17. Common neural substrates support speech and non-speech vocal tract gestures

    OpenAIRE

    Chang, Soo-Eun; Kenney, Mary Kay; Loucks, Torrey M.J.; Poletto, Christopher J.; Ludlow, Christy L.

    2009-01-01

    The issue of whether speech is supported by the same neural substrates as non-speech vocal-tract gestures has been contentious. In this fMRI study we tested whether producing non-speech vocal tract gestures in humans shares the same functional neuroanatomy as non-sense speech syllables. Production of non-speech vocal tract gestures, devoid of phonological content but similar to speech in that they had familiar acoustic and somatosensory targets, were compared to the production of speech sylla...

  18. Introductory speeches

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    This CD is multimedia presentation of programme safety upgrading of Bohunice V1 NPP. This chapter consist of introductory commentary and 4 introductory speeches (video records): (1) Introductory speech of Vincent Pillar, Board chairman and director general of Slovak electric, Plc. (SE); (2) Introductory speech of Stefan Schmidt, director of SE - Bohunice Nuclear power plants; (3) Introductory speech of Jan Korec, Board chairman and director general of VUJE Trnava, Inc. - Engineering, Design and Research Organisation, Trnava; Introductory speech of Dietrich Kuschel, Senior vice-president of FRAMATOME ANP Project and Engineering

  19. Predicting speech intelligibility in conditions with nonlinearly processed noisy speech

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jørgensen, Søren; Dau, Torsten

    2013-01-01

    The speech-based envelope power spectrum model (sEPSM; [1]) was proposed in order to overcome the limitations of the classical speech transmission index (STI) and speech intelligibility index (SII). The sEPSM applies the signal-tonoise ratio in the envelope domain (SNRenv), which was demonstrated...... to successfully predict speech intelligibility in conditions with nonlinearly processed noisy speech, such as processing with spectral subtraction. Moreover, a multiresolution version (mr-sEPSM) was demonstrated to account for speech intelligibility in various conditions with stationary and fluctuating...

  20. Musical intervention enhances infants' neural processing of temporal structure in music and speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, T Christina; Kuhl, Patricia K

    2016-05-10

    Individuals with music training in early childhood show enhanced processing of musical sounds, an effect that generalizes to speech processing. However, the conclusions drawn from previous studies are limited due to the possible confounds of predisposition and other factors affecting musicians and nonmusicians. We used a randomized design to test the effects of a laboratory-controlled music intervention on young infants' neural processing of music and speech. Nine-month-old infants were randomly assigned to music (intervention) or play (control) activities for 12 sessions. The intervention targeted temporal structure learning using triple meter in music (e.g., waltz), which is difficult for infants, and it incorporated key characteristics of typical infant music classes to maximize learning (e.g., multimodal, social, and repetitive experiences). Controls had similar multimodal, social, repetitive play, but without music. Upon completion, infants' neural processing of temporal structure was tested in both music (tones in triple meter) and speech (foreign syllable structure). Infants' neural processing was quantified by the mismatch response (MMR) measured with a traditional oddball paradigm using magnetoencephalography (MEG). The intervention group exhibited significantly larger MMRs in response to music temporal structure violations in both auditory and prefrontal cortical regions. Identical results were obtained for temporal structure changes in speech. The intervention thus enhanced temporal structure processing not only in music, but also in speech, at 9 mo of age. We argue that the intervention enhanced infants' ability to extract temporal structure information and to predict future events in time, a skill affecting both music and speech processing.

  1. Exploring Australian speech-language pathologists' use and perceptions ofnon-speech oral motor exercises.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rumbach, Anna F; Rose, Tanya A; Cheah, Mynn

    2018-01-29

    To explore Australian speech-language pathologists' use of non-speech oral motor exercises, and rationales for using/not using non-speech oral motor exercises in clinical practice. A total of 124 speech-language pathologists practising in Australia, working with paediatric and/or adult clients with speech sound difficulties, completed an online survey. The majority of speech-language pathologists reported that they did not use non-speech oral motor exercises when working with paediatric or adult clients with speech sound difficulties. However, more than half of the speech-language pathologists working with adult clients who have dysarthria reported using non-speech oral motor exercises with this population. The most frequently reported rationale for using non-speech oral motor exercises in speech sound difficulty management was to improve awareness/placement of articulators. The majority of speech-language pathologists agreed there is no clear clinical or research evidence base to support non-speech oral motor exercise use with clients who have speech sound difficulties. This study provides an overview of Australian speech-language pathologists' reported use and perceptions of non-speech oral motor exercises' applicability and efficacy in treating paediatric and adult clients who have speech sound difficulties. The research findings provide speech-language pathologists with insight into how and why non-speech oral motor exercises are currently used, and adds to the knowledge base regarding Australian speech-language pathology practice of non-speech oral motor exercises in the treatment of speech sound difficulties. Implications for Rehabilitation Non-speech oral motor exercises refer to oral motor activities which do not involve speech, but involve the manipulation or stimulation of oral structures including the lips, tongue, jaw, and soft palate. Non-speech oral motor exercises are intended to improve the function (e.g., movement, strength) of oral structures. The

  2. An Ethical Foreign Policy? Globalism as a Threat to the US National Interest

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wassim Daghrir

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available An ethical foreign policy can have no objectives other than those that are of service to its own people. An unethical foreign policy, however, may pursue objectives that enhance the nation as a power, seeking dominance for its own sake, for the honor, glory and wealth of the state or a minority within the state, or spreading its ideology out of missionary fervor. The mainstream wisdom in the United States is that the US foreign policy agendas are virtuous and ethical, since they are oriented mainly towards the protection and enhancement of the American ‘National Interest’. Nevertheless, the orthodox perception among many foreign observers is that the American foreign policy is by no means ethical, since it is oriented exclusively towards the promotion of the Americans’ interests at the expense of the rest of the world. My thesis is that the US foreign policy is unethical and anti-democratic mainly because it is causing a lot of harm to the American taxpayers’ interests. I esteem that the American people are the real permanent victims of their country’s globalist stance. This article is based on an argumentative criticism of the mainstream American perception of U.S. foreign policy as well as a criticism of the foreign observers’ perception of American foreign policy. In a nutshell, this article tries to highlight the unethical nature of the American foreign policy with a focus on the complex justifications for such an undemocratic globalist agenda.

  3. [Improving speech comprehension using a new cochlear implant speech processor].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Müller-Deile, J; Kortmann, T; Hoppe, U; Hessel, H; Morsnowski, A

    2009-06-01

    The aim of this multicenter clinical field study was to assess the benefits of the new Freedom 24 sound processor for cochlear implant (CI) users implanted with the Nucleus 24 cochlear implant system. The study included 48 postlingually profoundly deaf experienced CI users who demonstrated speech comprehension performance with their current speech processor on the Oldenburg sentence test (OLSA) in quiet conditions of at least 80% correct scores and who were able to perform adaptive speech threshold testing using the OLSA in noisy conditions. Following baseline measures of speech comprehension performance with their current speech processor, subjects were upgraded to the Freedom 24 speech processor. After a take-home trial period of at least 2 weeks, subject performance was evaluated by measuring the speech reception threshold with the Freiburg multisyllabic word test and speech intelligibility with the Freiburg monosyllabic word test at 50 dB and 70 dB in the sound field. The results demonstrated highly significant benefits for speech comprehension with the new speech processor. Significant benefits for speech comprehension were also demonstrated with the new speech processor when tested in competing background noise.In contrast, use of the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) did not prove to be a suitably sensitive assessment tool for comparative subjective self-assessment of hearing benefits with each processor. Use of the preprocessing algorithm known as adaptive dynamic range optimization (ADRO) in the Freedom 24 led to additional improvements over the standard upgrade map for speech comprehension in quiet and showed equivalent performance in noise. Through use of the preprocessing beam-forming algorithm BEAM, subjects demonstrated a highly significant improved signal-to-noise ratio for speech comprehension thresholds (i.e., signal-to-noise ratio for 50% speech comprehension scores) when tested with an adaptive procedure using the Oldenburg

  4. Speech coding

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ravishankar, C., Hughes Network Systems, Germantown, MD

    1998-05-08

    Speech is the predominant means of communication between human beings and since the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, speech services have remained to be the core service in almost all telecommunication systems. Original analog methods of telephony had the disadvantage of speech signal getting corrupted by noise, cross-talk and distortion Long haul transmissions which use repeaters to compensate for the loss in signal strength on transmission links also increase the associated noise and distortion. On the other hand digital transmission is relatively immune to noise, cross-talk and distortion primarily because of the capability to faithfully regenerate digital signal at each repeater purely based on a binary decision. Hence end-to-end performance of the digital link essentially becomes independent of the length and operating frequency bands of the link Hence from a transmission point of view digital transmission has been the preferred approach due to its higher immunity to noise. The need to carry digital speech became extremely important from a service provision point of view as well. Modem requirements have introduced the need for robust, flexible and secure services that can carry a multitude of signal types (such as voice, data and video) without a fundamental change in infrastructure. Such a requirement could not have been easily met without the advent of digital transmission systems, thereby requiring speech to be coded digitally. The term Speech Coding is often referred to techniques that represent or code speech signals either directly as a waveform or as a set of parameters by analyzing the speech signal. In either case, the codes are transmitted to the distant end where speech is reconstructed or synthesized using the received set of codes. A more generic term that is applicable to these techniques that is often interchangeably used with speech coding is the term voice coding. This term is more generic in the sense that the

  5. Evaluating Speech acts in ELT Textbooks: The Case of Compliments and Complaints in the Touchstone Series

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahdieh Jalilian

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Textbooks play an important role in English Language Teaching (ELT, particularly in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL context where it provides the primary linguistic input. The present research was an attempt to comparatively evaluate the Touchstone series in terms of compliment and complaint speech acts. Four Touchstone textbooks (Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, and Book 4 were selected and content analysis was done using Olshtain and Weinbach’s (1993 complaint strategies and Wolfson and Manes’ (1980 classification of compliment. The frequencies and percentages of compliments and complaint speech acts were obtained. Data analysis showed that, first, the total frequency of the complaint speech act was higher in Touchstone, Book 4 than the other three textbooks; second, the frequency of complaint and compliment speech acts in the Writing section was quite low, but the Conversation section had a high frequency of compliment speech act in the Touchstone series; third, the expression of annoyance or disapproval complaint strategy was frequently used in the Touchstone series; fourth, the compliment strategy of ‘noun phrase + looks/is (intensifier adjective’ was very frequent in the Touchstone series; finally, there was a significant difference between the frequencies of the two speech acts, in general, in the four Touchstone textbooks. Considering the weaknesses and strengthens of Touchstone series, implications for teachers, material developers, and textbook writers are provided.

  6. Right of action and participation in administrative procedure of foreign neighbours as exemplified by Atomic Energy Law and the Law on Immission Control

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lukes, R.; Dehmer, R.; Wendling, K.

    1986-01-01

    The article deals with the question whether the exclusion of foreigners from participation in a licensing procedure pursuant to Atomic Energy Law (Administrative Court Oldenburg, February 6, 1985) may be transferred to the licensing procedure pursuant to the Federal Art on Protection Against Harmful Effects on the Environment. A further problem concerns the consideration of foreign neighbours' interests by the licensing authority. While the authors accept the latter, they refuse the right of action of foreigners. (CW) [de

  7. The analysis of speech acts patterns in two Egyptian inaugural speeches

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Imad Hayif Sameer

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The theory of speech acts, which clarifies what people do when they speak, is not about individual words or sentences that form the basic elements of human communication, but rather about particular speech acts that are performed when uttering words. A speech act is the attempt at doing something purely by speaking. Many things can be done by speaking.  Speech acts are studied under what is called speech act theory, and belong to the domain of pragmatics. In this paper, two Egyptian inaugural speeches from El-Sadat and El-Sisi, belonging to different periods were analyzed to find out whether there were differences within this genre in the same culture or not. The study showed that there was a very small difference between these two speeches which were analyzed according to Searle’s theory of speech acts. In El Sadat’s speech, commissives came to occupy the first place. Meanwhile, in El–Sisi’s speech, assertives occupied the first place. Within the speeches of one culture, we can find that the differences depended on the circumstances that surrounded the elections of the Presidents at the time. Speech acts were tools they used to convey what they wanted and to obtain support from their audiences.

  8. Speech Problems

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Staying Safe Videos for Educators Search English Español Speech Problems KidsHealth / For Teens / Speech Problems What's in ... a person's ability to speak clearly. Some Common Speech and Language Disorders Stuttering is a problem that ...

  9. Sleep Disrupts High-Level Speech Parsing Despite Significant Basic Auditory Processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Makov, Shiri; Sharon, Omer; Ding, Nai; Ben-Shachar, Michal; Nir, Yuval; Zion Golumbic, Elana

    2017-08-09

    The extent to which the sleeping brain processes sensory information remains unclear. This is particularly true for continuous and complex stimuli such as speech, in which information is organized into hierarchically embedded structures. Recently, novel metrics for assessing the neural representation of continuous speech have been developed using noninvasive brain recordings that have thus far only been tested during wakefulness. Here we investigated, for the first time, the sleeping brain's capacity to process continuous speech at different hierarchical levels using a newly developed Concurrent Hierarchical Tracking (CHT) approach that allows monitoring the neural representation and processing-depth of continuous speech online. Speech sequences were compiled with syllables, words, phrases, and sentences occurring at fixed time intervals such that different linguistic levels correspond to distinct frequencies. This enabled us to distinguish their neural signatures in brain activity. We compared the neural tracking of intelligible versus unintelligible (scrambled and foreign) speech across states of wakefulness and sleep using high-density EEG in humans. We found that neural tracking of stimulus acoustics was comparable across wakefulness and sleep and similar across all conditions regardless of speech intelligibility. In contrast, neural tracking of higher-order linguistic constructs (words, phrases, and sentences) was only observed for intelligible speech during wakefulness and could not be detected at all during nonrapid eye movement or rapid eye movement sleep. These results suggest that, whereas low-level auditory processing is relatively preserved during sleep, higher-level hierarchical linguistic parsing is severely disrupted, thereby revealing the capacity and limits of language processing during sleep. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Despite the persistence of some sensory processing during sleep, it is unclear whether high-level cognitive processes such as speech

  10. Alternative Speech Communication System for Persons with Severe Speech Disorders

    Science.gov (United States)

    Selouani, Sid-Ahmed; Sidi Yakoub, Mohammed; O'Shaughnessy, Douglas

    2009-12-01

    Assistive speech-enabled systems are proposed to help both French and English speaking persons with various speech disorders. The proposed assistive systems use automatic speech recognition (ASR) and speech synthesis in order to enhance the quality of communication. These systems aim at improving the intelligibility of pathologic speech making it as natural as possible and close to the original voice of the speaker. The resynthesized utterances use new basic units, a new concatenating algorithm and a grafting technique to correct the poorly pronounced phonemes. The ASR responses are uttered by the new speech synthesis system in order to convey an intelligible message to listeners. Experiments involving four American speakers with severe dysarthria and two Acadian French speakers with sound substitution disorders (SSDs) are carried out to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods. An improvement of the Perceptual Evaluation of the Speech Quality (PESQ) value of 5% and more than 20% is achieved by the speech synthesis systems that deal with SSD and dysarthria, respectively.

  11. Screening for Speech and Language Delay in Children 5 Years Old and Younger: A Systematic Review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wallace, Ina F; Berkman, Nancy D; Watson, Linda R; Coyne-Beasley, Tamera; Wood, Charles T; Cullen, Katherine; Lohr, Kathleen N

    2015-08-01

    No recommendation exists for or against routine use of brief, formal screening instruments in primary care to detect speech and language delay in children through 5 years of age. This review aimed to update the evidence on screening and treating children for speech and language since the 2006 US Preventive Services Task Force systematic review. Medline, the Cochrane Library, PsycInfo, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, ClinicalTrials.gov, and reference lists. We included studies reporting diagnostic accuracy of screening tools and randomized controlled trials reporting benefits and harms of treatment of speech and language. Two independent reviewers extracted data, checked accuracy, and assigned quality ratings using predefined criteria. We found no evidence for the impact of screening on speech and language outcomes. In 23 studies evaluating the accuracy of screening tools, sensitivity ranged between 50% and 94%, and specificity ranged between 45% and 96%. Twelve treatment studies improved various outcomes in language, articulation, and stuttering; little evidence emerged for interventions improving other outcomes or for adverse effects of treatment. Risk factors associated with speech and language delay were male gender, family history, and low parental education. A limitation of this review is the lack of well-designed, well-conducted studies addressing whether screening for speech and language delay or disorders improves outcomes. Several screening tools can accurately identify children for diagnostic evaluations and interventions, but evidence is inadequate regarding applicability in primary care settings. Some treatments for young children identified with speech and language delays and disorders may be effective. Copyright © 2015 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

  12. Difficulties that Students who Learn Turkish as a Foreign Language Encounter During Listening Skills

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdullah KALDIRIM

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Listening skills play an important role in an individual’s communication with others and in their understanding of the environment. Since it provides a basis for the acquisition of language skills it is one of the most important learning tools, and because it is frequently used in everyday life and in the learning process, listening skill is the foreground of foreign language teaching. It is important for students to understand what they listen to in order that they do not encounter any difficulties in the language learning process. To ensure success in the environments where the Turkish language is taught as a foreign language, it is necessary to follow the listening processes of the students attentively and to identify the problems they face during this process. This study aims to identify the listening barriers encountered by university students learning Turkish as a foreign language at level B2, and was designed based on a qualitative research approach and a phenomenological design. Within the scope of the study, eight students studying at Dumlupınar University’s TÖMER (Turkish & Foreign Languages Research and Application Center were identified as participants. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with students included in the sample, and descriptive analysis technique was applied in the analysis of the research data. Participants expressed views that they often encountered problems such as accented speech, frequent use of idioms and proverbs during listening, lack of vocabulary development, and lack of emphasis and voice intonation during speech. Also, factors that make listening easy to understand are identified as the other languages they speak, good vocabulary knowledge, interesting topics, listening to audiovisual elements, and the speaker’s use of gestures and mimics.

  13. A Danish open-set speech corpus for competing-speech studies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Jens Bo; Dau, Torsten; Neher, Tobias

    2014-01-01

    Studies investigating speech-on-speech masking effects commonly use closed-set speech materials such as the coordinate response measure [Bolia et al. (2000). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 107, 1065-1066]. However, these studies typically result in very low (i.e., negative) speech recognition thresholds (SRTs......) when the competing speech signals are spatially separated. To achieve higher SRTs that correspond more closely to natural communication situations, an open-set, low-context, multi-talker speech corpus was developed. Three sets of 268 unique Danish sentences were created, and each set was recorded...... with one of three professional female talkers. The intelligibility of each sentence in the presence of speech-shaped noise was measured. For each talker, 200 approximately equally intelligible sentences were then selected and systematically distributed into 10 test lists. Test list homogeneity was assessed...

  14. Are you a good mimic? Neuro-acoustic signatures for speech imitation ability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Susanne Maria Reiterer

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available We investigated individual differences in speech imitation ability in late bilinguals using a neuro-acoustic approach. 138 German-English bilinguals matched on various behavioral measures were tested for speech imitation ability in a foreign language, Hindi, and categorised into high and low ability groups. Brain activations and speech recordings were obtained from 26 participants from the two extreme groups as they performed a functional neuroimaging experiment which required them to imitate sentences in three conditions: (A German, (B English and (C German with fake English accent. We used recently developed novel acoustic analysis, namely the ‘articulation space’ as a metric to compare speech imitation abilities of the two groups. Across all three conditions, direct comparisons between the two groups, revealed brain activations (FWE corrected, p< 0.05 that were more widespread with significantly higher peak activity in the left supramarginal gyrus and postcentral areas for the low ability group. The high ability group, on the other hand showed significantly larger articulation space in all three conditions. In addition, articulation space also correlated positively with imitation ability (Pearson’s r=0.7, p<0.01. Our results suggest that an expanded articulation space for high ability individuals allows access to a larger repertoire of sounds, thereby providing skilled imitators greater flexibility in pronunciation and language learning.

  15. Speech entrainment enables patients with Broca’s aphasia to produce fluent speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hubbard, H. Isabel; Hudspeth, Sarah Grace; Holland, Audrey L.; Bonilha, Leonardo; Fromm, Davida; Rorden, Chris

    2012-01-01

    A distinguishing feature of Broca’s aphasia is non-fluent halting speech typically involving one to three words per utterance. Yet, despite such profound impairments, some patients can mimic audio-visual speech stimuli enabling them to produce fluent speech in real time. We call this effect ‘speech entrainment’ and reveal its neural mechanism as well as explore its usefulness as a treatment for speech production in Broca’s aphasia. In Experiment 1, 13 patients with Broca’s aphasia were tested in three conditions: (i) speech entrainment with audio-visual feedback where they attempted to mimic a speaker whose mouth was seen on an iPod screen; (ii) speech entrainment with audio-only feedback where patients mimicked heard speech; and (iii) spontaneous speech where patients spoke freely about assigned topics. The patients produced a greater variety of words using audio-visual feedback compared with audio-only feedback and spontaneous speech. No difference was found between audio-only feedback and spontaneous speech. In Experiment 2, 10 of the 13 patients included in Experiment 1 and 20 control subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine the neural mechanism that supports speech entrainment. Group results with patients and controls revealed greater bilateral cortical activation for speech produced during speech entrainment compared with spontaneous speech at the junction of the anterior insula and Brodmann area 47, in Brodmann area 37, and unilaterally in the left middle temporal gyrus and the dorsal portion of Broca’s area. Probabilistic white matter tracts constructed for these regions in the normal subjects revealed a structural network connected via the corpus callosum and ventral fibres through the extreme capsule. Unilateral areas were connected via the arcuate fasciculus. In Experiment 3, all patients included in Experiment 1 participated in a 6-week treatment phase using speech entrainment to improve speech production

  16. Musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing are linked through sensitivity to pitch and spectral information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kempe, Vera; Bublitz, Dennis; Brooks, Patricia J

    2015-05-01

    Is the observed link between musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing due to enhanced sensitivity to acoustic features underlying both musical and linguistic processing? To address this question, native English speakers (N = 118) discriminated Norwegian tonal contrasts and Norwegian vowels. Short tones differing in temporal, pitch, and spectral characteristics were used to measure sensitivity to the various acoustic features implicated in musical and speech processing. Musical ability was measured using Gordon's Advanced Measures of Musical Audiation. Results showed that sensitivity to specific acoustic features played a role in non-native speech-sound processing: Controlling for non-verbal intelligence, prior foreign language-learning experience, and sex, sensitivity to pitch and spectral information partially mediated the link between musical ability and discrimination of non-native vowels and lexical tones. The findings suggest that while sensitivity to certain acoustic features partially mediates the relationship between musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing, complex tests of musical ability also tap into other shared mechanisms. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

  17. [Self-harming behaviour].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kool, Nienke; Pollen, Wim; van Meijel, Berno

    2010-01-01

    To gain a better understanding of self-harm, a 28-year-old female patient and a 19-year-old female patient with self-harming behaviour are presented. The first patient refused treatment of cut wounds when the doctor enquired about the reason for self-harm. The second patient was referred for mental health care. These cases illustrate the complexity of this behaviour for the patient and the caregiver. Self-harm is often a symbol of underlying problems and serves multiple psychological functions. It is mostly used by patients to cope with unbearable emotions for which they have no other solution. The self-harm invokes different feelings in caregivers which tend to influence the attitude of the caregiver towards the patient. It is very important that caregivers are aware of their feelings and use them professionally. People who self-harm should not be judged, but treated respectfully and attention should be paid to their suffering.

  18. Multimodal Speech Capture System for Speech Rehabilitation and Learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sebkhi, Nordine; Desai, Dhyey; Islam, Mohammad; Lu, Jun; Wilson, Kimberly; Ghovanloo, Maysam

    2017-11-01

    Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are trained to correct articulation of people diagnosed with motor speech disorders by analyzing articulators' motion and assessing speech outcome while patients speak. To assist SLPs in this task, we are presenting the multimodal speech capture system (MSCS) that records and displays kinematics of key speech articulators, the tongue and lips, along with voice, using unobtrusive methods. Collected speech modalities, tongue motion, lips gestures, and voice are visualized not only in real-time to provide patients with instant feedback but also offline to allow SLPs to perform post-analysis of articulators' motion, particularly the tongue, with its prominent but hardly visible role in articulation. We describe the MSCS hardware and software components, and demonstrate its basic visualization capabilities by a healthy individual repeating the words "Hello World." A proof-of-concept prototype has been successfully developed for this purpose, and will be used in future clinical studies to evaluate its potential impact on accelerating speech rehabilitation by enabling patients to speak naturally. Pattern matching algorithms to be applied to the collected data can provide patients with quantitative and objective feedback on their speech performance, unlike current methods that are mostly subjective, and may vary from one SLP to another.

  19. Speech Motor Control in Fluent and Dysfluent Speech Production of an Individual with Apraxia of Speech and Broca's Aphasia

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Lieshout, Pascal H. H. M.; Bose, Arpita; Square, Paula A.; Steele, Catriona M.

    2007-01-01

    Apraxia of speech (AOS) is typically described as a motor-speech disorder with clinically well-defined symptoms, but without a clear understanding of the underlying problems in motor control. A number of studies have compared the speech of subjects with AOS to the fluent speech of controls, but only a few have included speech movement data and if…

  20. Training for Auditing (Listening of Foreign Texts: Methodology and Experience

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anzhelika S. Boutousova

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Auditing is considered systematically as a psychophysiological and cognitive process, on the one hand, and as a type of speech activity, on the other. The levels and stages of learning to listen to foreign language texts with their inherent difficulties are singled out. There are elementary, intermediate and advanced levels of learning listening. The stages of training are divided into pretext, text and post-text. Based on the analysis of scientific literature and personal observations, language, cognitive and socio-cultural difficulties in listening have been discovered. A system of exercises aimed at forming an auditory skills is described. Audience skills include segmentation of speech into parts, anticipation of the meaning of parts of words and sentences, forecasting of form and meaning at the text level, skills related to the development of the mechanism of memory; compression and interpretation of the text. The auditory skills are interpreted as listening recognition and understanding of individual words and expressions and grammatical structures.

  1. Enhancement of speech signals - with a focus on voiced speech models

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørholm, Sidsel Marie

    This thesis deals with speech enhancement, i.e., noise reduction in speech signals. This has applications in, e.g., hearing aids and teleconference systems. We consider a signal-driven approach to speech enhancement where a model of the speech is assumed and filters are generated based...... on this model. The basic model used in this thesis is the harmonic model which is a commonly used model for describing the voiced part of the speech signal. We show that it can be beneficial to extend the model to take inharmonicities or the non-stationarity of speech into account. Extending the model...

  2. Intelligibility for Binaural Speech with Discarded Low-SNR Speech Components.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schoenmaker, Esther; van de Par, Steven

    2016-01-01

    Speech intelligibility in multitalker settings improves when the target speaker is spatially separated from the interfering speakers. A factor that may contribute to this improvement is the improved detectability of target-speech components due to binaural interaction in analogy to the Binaural Masking Level Difference (BMLD). This would allow listeners to hear target speech components within specific time-frequency intervals that have a negative SNR, similar to the improvement in the detectability of a tone in noise when these contain disparate interaural difference cues. To investigate whether these negative-SNR target-speech components indeed contribute to speech intelligibility, a stimulus manipulation was performed where all target components were removed when local SNRs were smaller than a certain criterion value. It can be expected that for sufficiently high criterion values target speech components will be removed that do contribute to speech intelligibility. For spatially separated speakers, assuming that a BMLD-like detection advantage contributes to intelligibility, degradation in intelligibility is expected already at criterion values below 0 dB SNR. However, for collocated speakers it is expected that higher criterion values can be applied without impairing speech intelligibility. Results show that degradation of intelligibility for separated speakers is only seen for criterion values of 0 dB and above, indicating a negligible contribution of a BMLD-like detection advantage in multitalker settings. These results show that the spatial benefit is related to a spatial separation of speech components at positive local SNRs rather than to a BMLD-like detection improvement for speech components at negative local SNRs.

  3. An experimental Dutch keyboard-to-speech system for the speech impaired

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Deliege, R.J.H.

    1989-01-01

    An experimental Dutch keyboard-to-speech system has been developed to explor the possibilities and limitations of Dutch speech synthesis in a communication aid for the speech impaired. The system uses diphones and a formant synthesizer chip for speech synthesis. Input to the system is in

  4. Speech Function and Speech Role in Carl Fredricksen's Dialogue on Up Movie

    OpenAIRE

    Rehana, Ridha; Silitonga, Sortha

    2013-01-01

    One aim of this article is to show through a concrete example how speech function and speech role used in movie. The illustrative example is taken from the dialogue of Up movie. Central to the analysis proper form of dialogue on Up movie that contain of speech function and speech role; i.e. statement, offer, question, command, giving, and demanding. 269 dialogue were interpreted by actor, and it was found that the use of speech function and speech role.

  5. Deliberate Self Harm Behavior

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fatma Gul Helvaci Celik

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The deliberate self-harm behaviour which defined as attempting to own body resulting in tisue damage without conscious desire of peolple to die, is a major public health problem worldwide. The causes of deliberate self- harm, risk factors, the relationship between mental disorders and treatment strategies are not fully known. Deliberate self- harm can be observed together with psychiatric disorders such as borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, eating disorders and mood disorders. Also, deliberate self-harm must be distinguished from suicidal behavior. Psychologi-cal trauma has been suggested as a risk factor for deliberate self- harm behavior. Trauma and traumatic events have long been associated with deliberate self- harm behavior. The aim of this review article is to investigate the etiology and epidemiology of deliberate self-harm behaviour and relationship between psychiatric disorders. [Psikiyatride Guncel Yaklasimlar - Current Approaches in Psychiatry 2017; 9(2.000: 209-226

  6. Experimental comparison between speech transmission index, rapid speech transmission index, and speech intelligibility index.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Larm, Petra; Hongisto, Valtteri

    2006-02-01

    During the acoustical design of, e.g., auditoria or open-plan offices, it is important to know how speech can be perceived in various parts of the room. Different objective methods have been developed to measure and predict speech intelligibility, and these have been extensively used in various spaces. In this study, two such methods were compared, the speech transmission index (STI) and the speech intelligibility index (SII). Also the simplification of the STI, the room acoustics speech transmission index (RASTI), was considered. These quantities are all based on determining an apparent speech-to-noise ratio on selected frequency bands and summing them using a specific weighting. For comparison, some data were needed on the possible differences of these methods resulting from the calculation scheme and also measuring equipment. Their prediction accuracy was also of interest. Measurements were made in a laboratory having adjustable noise level and absorption, and in a real auditorium. It was found that the measurement equipment, especially the selection of the loudspeaker, can greatly affect the accuracy of the results. The prediction accuracy of the RASTI was found acceptable, if the input values for the prediction are accurately known, even though the studied space was not ideally diffuse.

  7. Robust Speech/Non-Speech Classification in Heterogeneous Multimedia Content

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Huijbregts, M.A.H.; de Jong, Franciska M.G.

    In this paper we present a speech/non-speech classification method that allows high quality classification without the need to know in advance what kinds of audible non-speech events are present in an audio recording and that does not require a single parameter to be tuned on in-domain data. Because

  8. Intelligibility of speech of children with speech and sound disorders

    OpenAIRE

    Ivetac, Tina

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to examine speech intelligibility of children with primary speech and sound disorders aged 3 to 6 years in everyday life. The research problem is based on the degree to which parents or guardians, immediate family members (sister, brother, grandparents), extended family members (aunt, uncle, cousin), child's friends, other acquaintances, child's teachers and strangers understand the speech of children with speech sound disorders. We examined whether the level ...

  9. [Self-harm vs. harming others: the lived experiences of a dysfunctional family].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Hsiu-Chin; Lin, Mei-Feng; Yu, Shu-Hua

    2007-10-01

    The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of self-harm and harm to others from the perspective of two adult offspring and a father, the latter of whom was prone to alcohol abuse and domestic violence and had attempted suicide. Written informed consents were obtained from the subjects after a detailed explanation of the research aims and procedures. A qualitative, phenomenological method was applied for the study. Three subjects were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide designed by the researchers and based on the aims of the study over a six-month period of home care. A qualitative content analysis based on a phenomenological method was used to identify themes in the data. Two main categories emerged: (1) the mutual harm to the couple subsystem, (2) the misplaced parental-child subsystem. Subsequently, two to four themes were identified from each category. These results provide a better analysis and understanding of the perceived experiences of the harm to the spouse, parental, and sibling subsystems. They should also help health professionals to improve awareness of the lived experiences associated with the issues of self-harm and threats of harm to others. This study could serve as a valuable reference in promoting possible prevention strategies aiming at the reduction of self-harm and harm to others in dysfunctional families within the community.

  10. Cutting and Self-Harm

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Your feelings Feeling sad Cutting and self-harm Cutting and self-harm Self-harm, sometimes called self- ... There are many types of self-injury, and cutting is one type that you may have heard ...

  11. The Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment into Japan - The Measures' Impact on FDI Series

    OpenAIRE

    Maiko Wada

    2005-01-01

    At the occasion of delivering the fiscal year 2003 policy speech, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi proposed to double foreign direct investment (hereafter, FDI) stock into Japan within five years to revitalize the Japanese economy. Against this background, various measures aimed at promoting FDI into Japan have been investigated and implemented by the government and concerned ministries. A number of significant measures implemented in the most recent years to improve the investment environmen...

  12. Speech disorders - children

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... disorder; Voice disorders; Vocal disorders; Disfluency; Communication disorder - speech disorder; Speech disorder - stuttering ... evaluation tools that can help identify and diagnose speech disorders: Denver Articulation Screening Examination Goldman-Fristoe Test of ...

  13. Neurophysiology of speech differences in childhood apraxia of speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Preston, Jonathan L; Molfese, Peter J; Gumkowski, Nina; Sorcinelli, Andrea; Harwood, Vanessa; Irwin, Julia R; Landi, Nicole

    2014-01-01

    Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a picture naming task of simple and complex words in children with typical speech and with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Results reveal reduced amplitude prior to speaking complex (multisyllabic) words relative to simple (monosyllabic) words for the CAS group over the right hemisphere during a time window thought to reflect phonological encoding of word forms. Group differences were also observed prior to production of spoken tokens regardless of word complexity during a time window just prior to speech onset (thought to reflect motor planning/programming). Results suggest differences in pre-speech neurolinguistic processes.

  14. The role of training structure in perceptual learning of accented speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tzeng, Christina Y; Alexander, Jessica E D; Sidaras, Sabrina K; Nygaard, Lynne C

    2016-11-01

    Foreign-accented speech contains multiple sources of variation that listeners learn to accommodate. Extending previous findings showing that exposure to high-variation training facilitates perceptual learning of accented speech, the current study examines to what extent the structure of training materials affects learning. During training, native adult speakers of American English transcribed sentences spoken in English by native Spanish-speaking adults. In Experiment 1, training stimuli were blocked by speaker, sentence, or randomized with respect to speaker and sentence (Variable training). At test, listeners transcribed novel English sentences produced by unfamiliar Spanish-accented speakers. Listeners' transcription accuracy was highest in the Variable condition, suggesting that varying both speaker identity and sentence across training trials enabled listeners to generalize their learning to novel speakers and linguistic content. Experiment 2 assessed the extent to which ordering of training tokens by a single factor, speaker intelligibility, would facilitate speaker-independent accent learning, finding that listeners' test performance did not reliably differ from that in the no-training control condition. Overall, these results suggest that the structure of training exposure, specifically trial-to-trial variation on both speaker's voice and linguistic content, facilitates learning of the systematic properties of accented speech. The current findings suggest a crucial role of training structure in optimizing perceptual learning. Beyond characterizing the types of variation listeners encode in their representations of spoken utterances, theories of spoken language processing should incorporate the role of training structure in learning lawful variation in speech. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  15. Facilitation of speech repetition accuracy by theta burst stimulation of the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Restle, Julia; Murakami, Takenobu; Ziemann, Ulf

    2012-07-01

    The posterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG) in the left hemisphere is thought to form part of the putative human mirror neuron system and is assigned a key role in mapping sensory perception onto motor action. Accordingly, the pIFG is involved in motor imitation of the observed actions of others but it is not known to what extent speech repetition of auditory-presented sentences is also a function of the pIFG. Here we applied fMRI-guided facilitating intermittent theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (iTBS), or depressant continuous TBS (cTBS), or intermediate TBS (imTBS) over the left pIFG of healthy subjects and compared speech repetition accuracy of foreign Japanese sentences before and after TBS. We found that repetition accuracy improved after iTBS and, to a lesser extent, after imTBS, but remained unchanged after cTBS. In a control experiment, iTBS was applied over the left middle occipital gyrus (MOG), a region not involved in sensorimotor processing of auditory-presented speech. Repetition accuracy remained unchanged after iTBS of MOG. We argue that the stimulation type and stimulation site specific facilitating effect of iTBS over left pIFG on speech repetition accuracy indicates a causal role of the human left-hemispheric pIFG in the translation of phonological perception to motor articulatory output for repetition of speech. This effect may prove useful in rehabilitation strategies that combine repetitive speech training with iTBS of the left pIFG in speech disorders, such as aphasia after cerebral stroke. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Nonsuicidal Self-Harm among Community Adolescents: Understanding the "Whats" and "Whys" of Self-Harm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laye-Gindhu, Aviva; Schonert-Reichl, Kimberly A.

    2005-01-01

    This study examines self-harm in a community sample of adolescents. More specifically, the study identifies the prevalence and types of self-harm, elucidates the nature and underlying function of self-harm, and evaluates the relation of psychological adjustment, sociodemographic, and health-risk variables to self-harm. Self-report questionnaires…

  17. Basic to Applied Research: The Benefits of Audio-Visual Speech Perception Research in Teaching Foreign Languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erdener, Dogu

    2016-01-01

    Traditionally, second language (L2) instruction has emphasised auditory-based instruction methods. However, this approach is restrictive in the sense that speech perception by humans is not just an auditory phenomenon but a multimodal one, and specifically, a visual one as well. In the past decade, experimental studies have shown that the…

  18. Listeners Experience Linguistic Masking Release in Noise-Vocoded Speech-in-Speech Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Viswanathan, Navin; Kokkinakis, Kostas; Williams, Brittany T.

    2018-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether listeners with normal hearing perceiving noise-vocoded speech-in-speech demonstrate better intelligibility of target speech when the background speech was mismatched in language (linguistic release from masking [LRM]) and/or location (spatial release from masking [SRM]) relative to the…

  19. Speech Perception and Short-Term Memory Deficits in Persistent Developmental Speech Disorder

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kenney, Mary Kay; Barac-Cikoja, Dragana; Finnegan, Kimberly; Jeffries, Neal; Ludlow, Christy L.

    2006-01-01

    Children with developmental speech disorders may have additional deficits in speech perception and/or short-term memory. To determine whether these are only transient developmental delays that can accompany the disorder in childhood or persist as part of the speech disorder, adults with a persistent familial speech disorder were tested on speech…

  20. Automatic speech recognition (ASR) based approach for speech therapy of aphasic patients: A review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jamal, Norezmi; Shanta, Shahnoor; Mahmud, Farhanahani; Sha'abani, MNAH

    2017-09-01

    This paper reviews the state-of-the-art an automatic speech recognition (ASR) based approach for speech therapy of aphasic patients. Aphasia is a condition in which the affected person suffers from speech and language disorder resulting from a stroke or brain injury. Since there is a growing body of evidence indicating the possibility of improving the symptoms at an early stage, ASR based solutions are increasingly being researched for speech and language therapy. ASR is a technology that transfers human speech into transcript text by matching with the system's library. This is particularly useful in speech rehabilitation therapies as they provide accurate, real-time evaluation for speech input from an individual with speech disorder. ASR based approaches for speech therapy recognize the speech input from the aphasic patient and provide real-time feedback response to their mistakes. However, the accuracy of ASR is dependent on many factors such as, phoneme recognition, speech continuity, speaker and environmental differences as well as our depth of knowledge on human language understanding. Hence, the review examines recent development of ASR technologies and its performance for individuals with speech and language disorders.

  1. Speech and Language Delay

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... OTC Relief for Diarrhea Home Diseases and Conditions Speech and Language Delay Condition Speech and Language Delay Share Print Table of Contents1. ... Treatment6. Everyday Life7. Questions8. Resources What is a speech and language delay? A speech and language delay ...

  2. A comparison of sensory-motor activity during speech in first and second languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simmonds, Anna J; Wise, Richard J S; Dhanjal, Novraj S; Leech, Robert

    2011-07-01

    A foreign language (L2) learned after childhood results in an accent. This functional neuroimaging study investigated speech in L2 as a sensory-motor skill. The hypothesis was that there would be an altered response in auditory and somatosensory association cortex, specifically the planum temporale and parietal operculum, respectively, when speaking in L2 relative to L1, independent of rate of speaking. These regions were selected for three reasons. First, an influential computational model proposes that these cortices integrate predictive feedforward and postarticulatory sensory feedback signals during articulation. Second, these adjacent regions (known as Spt) have been identified as a "sensory-motor interface" for speech production. Third, probabilistic anatomical atlases exist for these regions, to ensure the analyses are confined to sensory-motor differences between L2 and L1. The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and participants produced connected overt speech. The first hypothesis was that there would be greater activity in the planum temporale and the parietal operculum when subjects spoke in L2 compared with L1, one interpretation being that there is less efficient postarticulatory sensory monitoring when speaking in the less familiar L2. The second hypothesis was that this effect would be observed in both cerebral hemispheres. Although Spt is considered to be left-lateralized, this is based on studies of covert speech, whereas overt speech is accompanied by sensory feedback to bilateral auditory and somatosensory cortices. Both hypotheses were confirmed by the results. These findings provide the basis for future investigations of sensory-motor aspects of language learning using serial fMRI studies.

  3. Plasticity in the Human Speech Motor System Drives Changes in Speech Perception

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lametti, Daniel R.; Rochet-Capellan, Amélie; Neufeld, Emily; Shiller, Douglas M.

    2014-01-01

    Recent studies of human speech motor learning suggest that learning is accompanied by changes in auditory perception. But what drives the perceptual change? Is it a consequence of changes in the motor system? Or is it a result of sensory inflow during learning? Here, subjects participated in a speech motor-learning task involving adaptation to altered auditory feedback and they were subsequently tested for perceptual change. In two separate experiments, involving two different auditory perceptual continua, we show that changes in the speech motor system that accompany learning drive changes in auditory speech perception. Specifically, we obtained changes in speech perception when adaptation to altered auditory feedback led to speech production that fell into the phonetic range of the speech perceptual tests. However, a similar change in perception was not observed when the auditory feedback that subjects' received during learning fell into the phonetic range of the perceptual tests. This indicates that the central motor outflow associated with vocal sensorimotor adaptation drives changes to the perceptual classification of speech sounds. PMID:25080594

  4. Childhood apraxia of speech: A survey of praxis and typical speech characteristics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malmenholt, Ann; Lohmander, Anette; McAllister, Anita

    2017-07-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate current knowledge of the diagnosis childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) in Sweden and compare speech characteristics and symptoms to those of earlier survey findings in mainly English-speakers. In a web-based questionnaire 178 Swedish speech-language pathologists (SLPs) anonymously answered questions about their perception of typical speech characteristics for CAS. They graded own assessment skills and estimated clinical occurrence. The seven top speech characteristics reported as typical for children with CAS were: inconsistent speech production (85%), sequencing difficulties (71%), oro-motor deficits (63%), vowel errors (62%), voicing errors (61%), consonant cluster deletions (54%), and prosodic disturbance (53%). Motor-programming deficits described as lack of automatization of speech movements were perceived by 82%. All listed characteristics were consistent with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) consensus-based features, Strand's 10-point checklist, and the diagnostic model proposed by Ozanne. The mode for clinical occurrence was 5%. Number of suspected cases of CAS in the clinical caseload was approximately one new patient/year and SLP. The results support and add to findings from studies of CAS in English-speaking children with similar speech characteristics regarded as typical. Possibly, these findings could contribute to cross-linguistic consensus on CAS characteristics.

  5. Speech-specific audiovisual perception affects identification but not detection of speech

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Eskelund, Kasper; Andersen, Tobias

    Speech perception is audiovisual as evidenced by the McGurk effect in which watching incongruent articulatory mouth movements can change the phonetic auditory speech percept. This type of audiovisual integration may be specific to speech or be applied to all stimuli in general. To investigate...... of audiovisual integration specific to speech perception. However, the results of Tuomainen et al. might have been influenced by another effect. When observers were naïve, they had little motivation to look at the face. When informed, they knew that the face was relevant for the task and this could increase...... visual detection task. In our first experiment, observers presented with congruent and incongruent audiovisual sine-wave speech stimuli did only show a McGurk effect when informed of the speech nature of the stimulus. Performance on the secondary visual task was very good, thus supporting the finding...

  6. Speech-Language Therapy (For Parents)

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Staying Safe Videos for Educators Search English Español Speech-Language Therapy KidsHealth / For Parents / Speech-Language Therapy ... most kids with speech and/or language disorders. Speech Disorders, Language Disorders, and Feeding Disorders A speech ...

  7. Digital speech processing using Matlab

    CERN Document Server

    Gopi, E S

    2014-01-01

    Digital Speech Processing Using Matlab deals with digital speech pattern recognition, speech production model, speech feature extraction, and speech compression. The book is written in a manner that is suitable for beginners pursuing basic research in digital speech processing. Matlab illustrations are provided for most topics to enable better understanding of concepts. This book also deals with the basic pattern recognition techniques (illustrated with speech signals using Matlab) such as PCA, LDA, ICA, SVM, HMM, GMM, BPN, and KSOM.

  8. Developmental apraxia of speech in children. Quantitive assessment of speech characteristics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Thoonen, G.H.J.

    1998-01-01

    Developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) in children is a speech disorder, supposed to have a neurological origin, which is commonly considered to result from particular deficits in speech processing (i.e., phonological planning, motor programming). However, the label DAS has often been used as

  9. A hypothesis on improving foreign accents by optimizing variability in vocal learning brain circuits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simmonds, Anna J

    2015-01-01

    Rapid vocal motor learning is observed when acquiring a language in early childhood, or learning to speak another language later in life. Accurate pronunciation is one of the hardest things for late learners to master and they are almost always left with a non-native accent. Here, I propose a novel hypothesis that this accent could be improved by optimizing variability in vocal learning brain circuits during learning. Much of the neurobiology of human vocal motor learning has been inferred from studies on songbirds. Jarvis (2004) proposed the hypothesis that as in songbirds there are two pathways in humans: one for learning speech (the striatal vocal learning pathway), and one for production of previously learnt speech (the motor pathway). Learning new motor sequences necessary for accurate non-native pronunciation is challenging and I argue that in late learners of a foreign language the vocal learning pathway becomes inactive prematurely. The motor pathway is engaged once again and learners maintain their original native motor patterns for producing speech, resulting in speaking with a foreign accent. Further, I argue that variability in neural activity within vocal motor circuitry generates vocal variability that supports accurate non-native pronunciation. Recent theoretical and experimental work on motor learning suggests that variability in the motor movement is necessary for the development of expertise. I propose that there is little trial-by-trial variability when using the motor pathway. When using the vocal learning pathway variability gradually increases, reflecting an exploratory phase in which learners try out different ways of pronouncing words, before decreasing and stabilizing once the "best" performance has been identified. The hypothesis proposed here could be tested using behavioral interventions that optimize variability and engage the vocal learning pathway for longer, with the prediction that this would allow learners to develop new motor

  10. Perception of synthetic speech produced automatically by rule: Intelligibility of eight text-to-speech systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greene, Beth G; Logan, John S; Pisoni, David B

    1986-03-01

    We present the results of studies designed to measure the segmental intelligibility of eight text-to-speech systems and a natural speech control, using the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT). Results indicated that the voices tested could be grouped into four categories: natural speech, high-quality synthetic speech, moderate-quality synthetic speech, and low-quality synthetic speech. The overall performance of the best synthesis system, DECtalk-Paul, was equivalent to natural speech only in terms of performance on initial consonants. The findings are discussed in terms of recent work investigating the perception of synthetic speech under more severe conditions. Suggestions for future research on improving the quality of synthetic speech are also considered.

  11. Perception of synthetic speech produced automatically by rule: Intelligibility of eight text-to-speech systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    GREENE, BETH G.; LOGAN, JOHN S.; PISONI, DAVID B.

    2012-01-01

    We present the results of studies designed to measure the segmental intelligibility of eight text-to-speech systems and a natural speech control, using the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT). Results indicated that the voices tested could be grouped into four categories: natural speech, high-quality synthetic speech, moderate-quality synthetic speech, and low-quality synthetic speech. The overall performance of the best synthesis system, DECtalk-Paul, was equivalent to natural speech only in terms of performance on initial consonants. The findings are discussed in terms of recent work investigating the perception of synthetic speech under more severe conditions. Suggestions for future research on improving the quality of synthetic speech are also considered. PMID:23225916

  12. The speech perception skills of children with and without speech sound disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hearnshaw, Stephanie; Baker, Elise; Munro, Natalie

    To investigate whether Australian-English speaking children with and without speech sound disorder (SSD) differ in their overall speech perception accuracy. Additionally, to investigate differences in the perception of specific phonemes and the association between speech perception and speech production skills. Twenty-five Australian-English speaking children aged 48-60 months participated in this study. The SSD group included 12 children and the typically developing (TD) group included 13 children. Children completed routine speech and language assessments in addition to an experimental Australian-English lexical and phonetic judgement task based on Rvachew's Speech Assessment and Interactive Learning System (SAILS) program (Rvachew, 2009). This task included eight words across four word-initial phonemes-/k, ɹ, ʃ, s/. Children with SSD showed significantly poorer perceptual accuracy on the lexical and phonetic judgement task compared with TD peers. The phonemes /ɹ/ and /s/ were most frequently perceived in error across both groups. Additionally, the phoneme /ɹ/ was most commonly produced in error. There was also a positive correlation between overall speech perception and speech production scores. Children with SSD perceived speech less accurately than their typically developing peers. The findings suggest that an Australian-English variation of a lexical and phonetic judgement task similar to the SAILS program is promising and worthy of a larger scale study. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  13. Speech Matters

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hasse Jørgensen, Stina

    2011-01-01

    About Speech Matters - Katarina Gregos, the Greek curator's exhibition at the Danish Pavillion, the Venice Biannual 2011.......About Speech Matters - Katarina Gregos, the Greek curator's exhibition at the Danish Pavillion, the Venice Biannual 2011....

  14. Suicide Following Deliberate Self-Harm.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olfson, Mark; Wall, Melanie; Wang, Shuai; Crystal, Stephen; Gerhard, Tobias; Blanco, Carlos

    2017-08-01

    The authors sought to identify risk factors for repeat self-harm and completed suicide over the following year among adults with deliberate self-harm. A national cohort of Medicaid-financed adults clinically diagnosed with deliberate self-harm (N=61,297) was followed for up to 1 year. Repeat self-harm per 1,000 person-years and suicide rates per 100,000 person-years (based on cause of death information from the National Death Index) were determined. Hazard ratios of repeat self-harm and suicide were estimated by Cox proportional hazard models. During the 12 months after nonfatal self-harm, the rate of repeat self-harm was 263.2 per 1,000 person-years and the rate of completed suicide was 439.1 per 100,000 person-years, or 37.2 times higher than in a matched general population cohort. The hazard of suicide was higher after initial self-harm events involving violent as compared with nonviolent methods (hazard ratio=7.5, 95% CI=5.5-10.1), especially firearms (hazard ratio=15.86, 95% CI=10.7-23.4; computed with poisoning as reference), and to a lesser extent after events of patients who had recently received outpatient mental health care (hazard ratio=1.6, 95% CI=1.2-2.0). Compared with self-harm patients using nonviolent methods, those who used violent methods were at significantly increased risk of suicide during the first 30 days after the initial event (hazard ratio=17.5, 95% CI=11.2-27.3), but not during the following 335 days. Adults treated for deliberate self-harm frequently repeat self-harm in the following year. Patients who use a violent method for their initial self-harm, especially firearms, have an exceptionally high risk of suicide, particularly right after the initial event, which highlights the importance of careful assessment and close follow-up of this group.

  15. Watching Subtitled Films Can Help Learning Foreign Languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Birulés-Muntané, J; Soto-Faraco, S

    2016-01-01

    Watching English-spoken films with subtitles is becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. One reason for this trend is the assumption that perceptual learning of the sounds of a foreign language, English, will improve perception skills in non-English speakers. Yet, solid proof for this is scarce. In order to test the potential learning effects derived from watching subtitled media, a group of intermediate Spanish students of English as a foreign language watched a 1h-long episode of a TV drama in its original English version, with English, Spanish or no subtitles overlaid. Before and after the viewing, participants took a listening and vocabulary test to evaluate their speech perception and vocabulary acquisition in English, plus a final plot comprehension test. The results of the listening skills tests revealed that after watching the English subtitled version, participants improved these skills significantly more than after watching the Spanish subtitled or no-subtitles versions. The vocabulary test showed no reliable differences between subtitled conditions. Finally, as one could expect, plot comprehension was best under native, Spanish subtitles. These learning effects with just 1 hour exposure might have major implications with longer exposure times.

  16. Hate speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anne Birgitta Nilsen

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The manifesto of the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik is based on the “Eurabia” conspiracy theory. This theory is a key starting point for hate speech amongst many right-wing extremists in Europe, but also has ramifications beyond these environments. In brief, proponents of the Eurabia theory claim that Muslims are occupying Europe and destroying Western culture, with the assistance of the EU and European governments. By contrast, members of Al-Qaeda and other extreme Islamists promote the conspiracy theory “the Crusade” in their hate speech directed against the West. Proponents of the latter theory argue that the West is leading a crusade to eradicate Islam and Muslims, a crusade that is similarly facilitated by their governments. This article presents analyses of texts written by right-wing extremists and Muslim extremists in an effort to shed light on how hate speech promulgates conspiracy theories in order to spread hatred and intolerance.The aim of the article is to contribute to a more thorough understanding of hate speech’s nature by applying rhetorical analysis. Rhetorical analysis is chosen because it offers a means of understanding the persuasive power of speech. It is thus a suitable tool to describe how hate speech works to convince and persuade. The concepts from rhetorical theory used in this article are ethos, logos and pathos. The concept of ethos is used to pinpoint factors that contributed to Osama bin Laden's impact, namely factors that lent credibility to his promotion of the conspiracy theory of the Crusade. In particular, Bin Laden projected common sense, good morals and good will towards his audience. He seemed to have coherent and relevant arguments; he appeared to possess moral credibility; and his use of language demonstrated that he wanted the best for his audience.The concept of pathos is used to define hate speech, since hate speech targets its audience's emotions. In hate speech it is the

  17. Speech Inconsistency in Children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech, Language Impairment, and Speech Delay: Depends on the Stimuli

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iuzzini-Seigel, Jenya; Hogan, Tiffany P.; Green, Jordan R.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: The current research sought to determine (a) if speech inconsistency is a core feature of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) or if it is driven by comorbid language impairment that affects a large subset of children with CAS and (b) if speech inconsistency is a sensitive and specific diagnostic marker that can differentiate between CAS and…

  18. Clear Speech - Mere Speech? How segmental and prosodic speech reduction shape the impression that speakers create on listeners

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Niebuhr, Oliver

    2017-01-01

    of reduction levels and perceived speaker attributes in which moderate reduction can make a better impression on listeners than no reduction. In addition to its relevance in reduction models and theories, this interplay is instructive for various fields of speech application from social robotics to charisma...... whether variation in the degree of reduction also has a systematic effect on the attributes we ascribe to the speaker who produces the speech signal. A perception experiment was carried out for German in which 46 listeners judged whether or not speakers showing 3 different combinations of segmental...... and prosodic reduction levels (unreduced, moderately reduced, strongly reduced) are appropriately described by 13 physical, social, and cognitive attributes. The experiment shows that clear speech is not mere speech, and less clear speech is not just reduced either. Rather, results revealed a complex interplay...

  19. Audiovisual Temporal Recalibration for Speech in Synchrony Perception and Speech Identification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Asakawa, Kaori; Tanaka, Akihiro; Imai, Hisato

    We investigated whether audiovisual synchrony perception for speech could change after observation of the audiovisual temporal mismatch. Previous studies have revealed that audiovisual synchrony perception is re-calibrated after exposure to a constant timing difference between auditory and visual signals in non-speech. In the present study, we examined whether this audiovisual temporal recalibration occurs at the perceptual level even for speech (monosyllables). In Experiment 1, participants performed an audiovisual simultaneity judgment task (i.e., a direct measurement of the audiovisual synchrony perception) in terms of the speech signal after observation of the speech stimuli which had a constant audiovisual lag. The results showed that the “simultaneous” responses (i.e., proportion of responses for which participants judged the auditory and visual stimuli to be synchronous) at least partly depended on exposure lag. In Experiment 2, we adopted the McGurk identification task (i.e., an indirect measurement of the audiovisual synchrony perception) to exclude the possibility that this modulation of synchrony perception was solely attributable to the response strategy using stimuli identical to those of Experiment 1. The characteristics of the McGurk effect reported by participants depended on exposure lag. Thus, it was shown that audiovisual synchrony perception for speech could be modulated following exposure to constant lag both in direct and indirect measurement. Our results suggest that temporal recalibration occurs not only in non-speech signals but also in monosyllabic speech at the perceptual level.

  20. Pedagogical Perspectives on Gendered Speech Styles in the Teaching and Learning of Japanese as a Foreign Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bohn, Mariko Tajima

    2015-01-01

    This study examines student perspectives on gender differences in Japanese speech. Expanding on a small-scale survey by Siegal & Okamoto (2003) that investigated the views of eleven Japanese-language college teachers, this study analyzes 238 questionnaire responses from 220 Japanese-language students at four universities and a US government…

  1. Under-resourced speech recognition based on the speech manifold

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Sahraeian, R

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Conventional acoustic modeling involves estimating many parameters to effectively model feature distributions. The sparseness of speech and text data, however, degrades the reliability of the estimation process and makes speech recognition a...

  2. PRACTICING SPEECH THERAPY INTERVENTION FOR SOCIAL INTEGRATION OF CHILDREN WITH SPEECH DISORDERS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martin Ofelia POPESCU

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The article presents a concise speech correction intervention program in of dyslalia in conjunction with capacity development of intra, interpersonal and social integration of children with speech disorders. The program main objectives represent: the potential increasing of individual social integration by correcting speech disorders in conjunction with intra- and interpersonal capacity, the potential growth of children and community groups for social integration by optimizing the socio-relational context of children with speech disorder. In the program were included 60 children / students with dyslalia speech disorders (monomorphic and polymorphic dyslalia, from 11 educational institutions - 6 kindergartens and 5 schools / secondary schools, joined with inter-school logopedic centre (CLI from Targu Jiu city and areas of Gorj district. The program was implemented under the assumption that therapeutic-formative intervention to correct speech disorders and facilitate the social integration will lead, in combination with correct pronunciation disorders, to social integration optimization of children with speech disorders. The results conirm the hypothesis and gives facts about the intervention program eficiency.

  3. Schizophrenia alters intra-network functional connectivity in the caudate for detecting speech under informational speech masking conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Yingjun; Wu, Chao; Li, Juanhua; Li, Ruikeng; Peng, Hongjun; She, Shenglin; Ning, Yuping; Li, Liang

    2018-04-04

    Speech recognition under noisy "cocktail-party" environments involves multiple perceptual/cognitive processes, including target detection, selective attention, irrelevant signal inhibition, sensory/working memory, and speech production. Compared to health listeners, people with schizophrenia are more vulnerable to masking stimuli and perform worse in speech recognition under speech-on-speech masking conditions. Although the schizophrenia-related speech-recognition impairment under "cocktail-party" conditions is associated with deficits of various perceptual/cognitive processes, it is crucial to know whether the brain substrates critically underlying speech detection against informational speech masking are impaired in people with schizophrenia. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study investigated differences between people with schizophrenia (n = 19, mean age = 33 ± 10 years) and their matched healthy controls (n = 15, mean age = 30 ± 9 years) in intra-network functional connectivity (FC) specifically associated with target-speech detection under speech-on-speech-masking conditions. The target-speech detection performance under the speech-on-speech-masking condition in participants with schizophrenia was significantly worse than that in matched healthy participants (healthy controls). Moreover, in healthy controls, but not participants with schizophrenia, the strength of intra-network FC within the bilateral caudate was positively correlated with the speech-detection performance under the speech-masking conditions. Compared to controls, patients showed altered spatial activity pattern and decreased intra-network FC in the caudate. In people with schizophrenia, the declined speech-detection performance under speech-on-speech masking conditions is associated with reduced intra-caudate functional connectivity, which normally contributes to detecting target speech against speech masking via its functions of suppressing masking-speech signals.

  4. Speech disorder prevention

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miladis Fornaris-Méndez

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Language therapy has trafficked from a medical focus until a preventive focus. However, difficulties are evidenced in the development of this last task, because he is devoted bigger space to the correction of the disorders of the language. Because the speech disorders is the dysfunction with more frequently appearance, acquires special importance the preventive work that is developed to avoid its appearance. Speech education since early age of the childhood makes work easier for prevent the appearance of speech disorders in the children. The present work has as objective to offer different activities for the prevention of the speech disorders.

  5. Speech and Speech-Related Quality of Life After Late Palate Repair: A Patient's Perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schönmeyr, Björn; Wendby, Lisa; Sharma, Mitali; Jacobson, Lia; Restrepo, Carolina; Campbell, Alex

    2015-07-01

    Many patients with cleft palate deformities worldwide receive treatment at a later age than is recommended for normal speech to develop. The outcomes after late palate repairs in terms of speech and quality of life (QOL) still remain largely unstudied. In the current study, questionnaires were used to assess the patients' perception of speech and QOL before and after primary palate repair. All of the patients were operated at a cleft center in northeast India and had a cleft palate with a normal lip or with a cleft lip that had been previously repaired. A total of 134 patients (7-35 years) were interviewed preoperatively and 46 patients (7-32 years) were assessed in the postoperative survey. The survey showed that scores based on the speech handicap index, concerning speech and speech-related QOL, did not improve postoperatively. In fact, the questionnaires indicated that the speech became more unpredictable (P reported that their self-confidence had improved after the operation. Thus, the majority of interviewed patients who underwent late primary palate repair were satisfied with the surgery. At the same time, speech and speech-related QOL did not improve according to the speech handicap index-based survey. Speech predictability may even become worse and nasal regurgitation may increase after late palate repair, according to these results.

  6. Visual Speech Fills in Both Discrimination and Identification of Non-Intact Auditory Speech in Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jerger, Susan; Damian, Markus F.; McAlpine, Rachel P.; Abdi, Herve

    2018-01-01

    To communicate, children must discriminate and identify speech sounds. Because visual speech plays an important role in this process, we explored how visual speech influences phoneme discrimination and identification by children. Critical items had intact visual speech (e.g. baez) coupled to non-intact (excised onsets) auditory speech (signified…

  7. Tackling the complexity in speech

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    section includes four carefully selected chapters. They deal with facets of speech production, speech acoustics, and/or speech perception or recognition, place them in an integrated phonetic-phonological perspective, and relate them in more or less explicit ways to aspects of speech technology. Therefore......, we hope that this volume can help speech scientists with traditional training in phonetics and phonology to keep up with the latest developments in speech technology. In the opposite direction, speech researchers starting from a technological perspective will hopefully get inspired by reading about...... the questions, phenomena, and communicative functions that are currently addressed in phonetics and phonology. Either way, the future of speech research lies in international, interdisciplinary collaborations, and our volume is meant to reflect and facilitate such collaborations...

  8. Speech in spinocerebellar ataxia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schalling, Ellika; Hartelius, Lena

    2013-12-01

    Spinocerebellar ataxias (SCAs) are a heterogeneous group of autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxias clinically characterized by progressive ataxia, dysarthria and a range of other concomitant neurological symptoms. Only a few studies include detailed characterization of speech symptoms in SCA. Speech symptoms in SCA resemble ataxic dysarthria but symptoms related to phonation may be more prominent. One study to date has shown an association between differences in speech and voice symptoms related to genotype. More studies of speech and voice phenotypes are motivated, to possibly aid in clinical diagnosis. In addition, instrumental speech analysis has been demonstrated to be a reliable measure that may be used to monitor disease progression or therapy outcomes in possible future pharmacological treatments. Intervention by speech and language pathologists should go beyond assessment. Clinical guidelines for management of speech, communication and swallowing need to be developed for individuals with progressive cerebellar ataxia. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES OF SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO‘S THOUGHT PATTERNS IN HIS ENGLISH SPEECH TEXTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sulistya ningsih

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available The underlying principles of thought patterns as shown in SBY's English Speeches Texts are made because there are different responses from the public, a part of public praise that SBY is a good president, and others claim and criticize him that  he is slow (Djalal, 2007: forward page. This title so far has not been investigated. This research was aimed at finding out:  the underlying principles of SBY’s thought patterns in his English Speech Texts related to Javanese philosophy. This research is qualitative. The data selected from SBY’s speech Texts were analyzed using semantic and pragmastylistic theory then were related to Javanese philosophy. The findings are the underlying principles of SBY’s thought patterns based on Javanese philosophy manifested in his English Speech Texts are: first is Memayu Hayuning Bawana, Ambrasta dur Hangkara means to reach safety, peace, happiness and well-being of the world and its contents, to keep the world maintained and harmony. Second, Rukun agawe santosa crah agawe bubrah  means to build the condition of harmony, and avoid conflict, because conflict can be harmful to both parties. Third, tepa selira means keep thinking not to offend others or lighten the burdens of others, tolerance. Fourth is ana rembug becik dirembug means thru negotiations can avoid conflict and achieve cooperation, safety, peace and prosperity. In sum, the world peace can be reached thru discussions without war, soft powers.

  10. Predicting Speech Intelligibility with a Multiple Speech Subsystems Approach in Children with Cerebral Palsy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Jimin; Hustad, Katherine C.; Weismer, Gary

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: Speech acoustic characteristics of children with cerebral palsy (CP) were examined with a multiple speech subsystems approach; speech intelligibility was evaluated using a prediction model in which acoustic measures were selected to represent three speech subsystems. Method: Nine acoustic variables reflecting different subsystems, and…

  11. A causal test of the motor theory of speech perception: a case of impaired speech production and spared speech perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stasenko, Alena; Bonn, Cory; Teghipco, Alex; Garcea, Frank E; Sweet, Catherine; Dombovy, Mary; McDonough, Joyce; Mahon, Bradford Z

    2015-01-01

    The debate about the causal role of the motor system in speech perception has been reignited by demonstrations that motor processes are engaged during the processing of speech sounds. Here, we evaluate which aspects of auditory speech processing are affected, and which are not, in a stroke patient with dysfunction of the speech motor system. We found that the patient showed a normal phonemic categorical boundary when discriminating two non-words that differ by a minimal pair (e.g., ADA-AGA). However, using the same stimuli, the patient was unable to identify or label the non-word stimuli (using a button-press response). A control task showed that he could identify speech sounds by speaker gender, ruling out a general labelling impairment. These data suggest that while the motor system is not causally involved in perception of the speech signal, it may be used when other cues (e.g., meaning, context) are not available.

  12. Sex-work harm reduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rekart, Michael L

    2005-12-17

    Sex work is an extremely dangerous profession. The use of harm-reduction principles can help to safeguard sex workers' lives in the same way that drug users have benefited from drug-use harm reduction. Sex workers are exposed to serious harms: drug use, disease, violence, discrimination, debt, criminalisation, and exploitation (child prostitution, trafficking for sex work, and exploitation of migrants). Successful and promising harm-reduction strategies are available: education, empowerment, prevention, care, occupational health and safety, decriminalisation of sex workers, and human-rights-based approaches. Successful interventions include peer education, training in condom-negotiating skills, safety tips for street-based sex workers, male and female condoms, the prevention-care synergy, occupational health and safety guidelines for brothels, self-help organisations, and community-based child protection networks. Straightforward and achievable steps are available to improve the day-to-day lives of sex workers while they continue to work. Conceptualising and debating sex-work harm reduction as a new paradigm can hasten this process.

  13. The Relationship between Speech Production and Speech Perception Deficits in Parkinson's Disease

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Keyser, Kim; Santens, Patrick; Bockstael, Annelies; Botteldooren, Dick; Talsma, Durk; De Vos, Stefanie; Van Cauwenberghe, Mieke; Verheugen, Femke; Corthals, Paul; De Letter, Miet

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: This study investigated the possible relationship between hypokinetic speech production and speech intensity perception in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Method: Participants included 14 patients with idiopathic PD and 14 matched healthy controls (HCs) with normal hearing and cognition. First, speech production was objectified…

  14. Visual speech information: a help or hindrance in perceptual processing of dysarthric speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Borrie, Stephanie A

    2015-03-01

    This study investigated the influence of visual speech information on perceptual processing of neurologically degraded speech. Fifty listeners identified spastic dysarthric speech under both audio (A) and audiovisual (AV) conditions. Condition comparisons revealed that the addition of visual speech information enhanced processing of the neurologically degraded input in terms of (a) acuity (percent phonemes correct) of vowels and consonants and (b) recognition (percent words correct) of predictive and nonpredictive phrases. Listeners exploited stress-based segmentation strategies more readily in AV conditions, suggesting that the perceptual benefit associated with adding visual speech information to the auditory signal-the AV advantage-has both segmental and suprasegmental origins. Results also revealed that the magnitude of the AV advantage can be predicted, to some degree, by the extent to which an individual utilizes syllabic stress cues to inform word recognition in AV conditions. Findings inform the development of a listener-specific model of speech perception that applies to processing of dysarthric speech in everyday communication contexts.

  15. The treatment of apraxia of speech : Speech and music therapy, an innovative joint effort

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hurkmans, Josephus Johannes Stephanus

    2016-01-01

    Apraxia of Speech (AoS) is a neurogenic speech disorder. A wide variety of behavioural methods have been developed to treat AoS. Various therapy programmes use musical elements to improve speech production. A unique therapy programme combining elements of speech therapy and music therapy is called

  16. Climate change denial, freedom of speech and global justice

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Trygve Lavik

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available In this paper I claim that there are moral reasons for making climate denialism illegal . First I define climate denialism, and then I discuss its impact on society and its reception in the media.  I build my philosophical arguments mainly on John Stuart Mill and Thomas M. Scanlon.  According to Mill’s utilitarian justification of free speech, even untrue opinions are valuable in society’s pursuit of more truth. Consequently one might think that Mill’s philosophy would justify climate denialists’ right to free speech.  A major section of the paper argues against that view. The main arguments are: Climate denialism is not beneficial because its main goal is to produce doubt, and not truth. Climate denialism is not sincerely meant, which is a necessary condition for Mill to accept utterances. Climate denialists bring harm, by blocking necessary action on climate change.  Primarily they harm future generations and people in developing countries. Hence the case can be made in terms of global justice: Would future generations and people in developing countries support my claim? I think so, or so I argue. My argument from global justice is built on Scanlon’s distinction between the interests of participants, the interests of audiences, and the interests of bystanders.  The climate denialists have participant interests ‘in being able to call something to the attention of a wide audience’. Audience interests consist in ‘having access to expressions that we wish to hear or read, and even in being exposed to some degree to expressions we have not chosen’. Future generations and people in poor countries are bystanders to the climate debate. If the debate postpones necessary actions, it is the bystanders who must pay the price. I argue that bystanders’ costs outweigh participants’ and audiences’ interests, and that this is an argument for a statutory ban on climate denialism.Article first published online: 21 DEC 2015 

  17. Measures for protection of the environment and the breach of a foreign investor's rights

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Đundić Petar

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper analyses the relationship between state measures aimed at protecting the environment and the so-called regulative expropriation of investment. Protection of the environment has established itself as a legitimate regulative purpose in legal doctrine and in a number of sources of international foreign investment law. In the analytical framework of police powers doctrine it would suggest that state measures taken for environmental reasons, even if they are harmful for the economic interests of foreign investor, cannot be considered regulative expropriation. However, arbitral practice shows more restrictive approach towards regulative freedom of states in this area. The right of state to regulate without imposition of a duty to compensate a foreign investor for his loss is not unconditionally accepted. The regulative measure must be taken in good faith, i.e. with the true purpose of protecting the environment and nondiscriminatory in its character. Furthermore, there is a tendency in arbitral practice that the legitimate regulative purpose of state measure is weighed against other factors such as legitimate expectations of a foreign investor and the level of his economic loss in order to determine whether the expropriation has occurred.

  18. Practical speech user interface design

    CERN Document Server

    Lewis, James R

    2010-01-01

    Although speech is the most natural form of communication between humans, most people find using speech to communicate with machines anything but natural. Drawing from psychology, human-computer interaction, linguistics, and communication theory, Practical Speech User Interface Design provides a comprehensive yet concise survey of practical speech user interface (SUI) design. It offers practice-based and research-based guidance on how to design effective, efficient, and pleasant speech applications that people can really use. Focusing on the design of speech user interfaces for IVR application

  19. Motor Speech Phenotypes of Frontotemporal Dementia, Primary Progressive Aphasia, and Progressive Apraxia of Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poole, Matthew L.; Brodtmann, Amy; Darby, David; Vogel, Adam P.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: Our purpose was to create a comprehensive review of speech impairment in frontotemporal dementia (FTD), primary progressive aphasia (PPA), and progressive apraxia of speech in order to identify the most effective measures for diagnosis and monitoring, and to elucidate associations between speech and neuroimaging. Method: Speech and…

  20. Repetition of self-harm and suicide following self-harm in children and adolescents: findings from the Multicentre Study of Self-harm in England.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hawton, Keith; Bergen, Helen; Kapur, Navneet; Cooper, Jayne; Steeg, Sarah; Ness, Jennifer; Waters, Keith

    2012-12-01

    Self-harm (intentional self-poisoning and self-injury) in children and adolescents is often repeated and is associated with increased risk of future suicide. We have investigated factors associated with these outcomes. We used data collected in the Multicentre Study of Self-harm in England on all self-harm hospital presentations by individuals aged 10-18 years between 2000 and 2007, and national death information on these individuals to the end of 2010. Cox hazard proportional models were used to identify independent and multivariable predictors of repetition of self-harm and of suicide. Repetition of self-harm occurred in 27.3% of individuals (N = 3920) who presented between 2000 and 2005 and were followed up until 2007. Multivariate analysis showed that repetition was associated with age, self-cutting, and previous self-harm and psychiatric treatment. Of 51 deaths in individuals who presented between 2000 and 2007 and were followed up to 2010 (N = 5133) half (49.0%) were suicides. The method used was usually different to that used for self-harm. Multivariate analysis showed that suicide was associated with male gender [Hazard ratio (HR) = 2.4, 95% CI 1.2-4.8], self-cutting (HR = 2.1, 95% CI 1.1-3.7) and prior psychiatric treatment at initial presentation (HR = 4.2, 95% CI 1.7-10.5). It was also associated with self-cutting and history of psychiatric treatment at the last episode before death, and history of previous self harm. Self-cutting as a method of self-harm in children and adolescents conveys greater risk of suicide (and repetition) than self-poisoning although different methods are usually used for suicide. The findings underline the need for psychosocial assessment in all cases. © 2012 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry © 2012 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

  1. The Role of Agent and Social Context in Judgments of Freedom of Speech and Religion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Helwig, Charles C

    1997-06-01

    This study examined children's, adolescents', and college students' judgments of the rights of child and adult agents to freedom of speech and religion in 3 social contexts: the general level of society, the school, and the family. Two hundred forty participants, evenly divided into 5 grade levels (mean ages 6,6, 8,5,10,6,12,4, and 22,7) made judgments of the legitimacy of authority prohibition, rule evaluation, generalizability, and rule violation for all freedom/social context/agent combinations. Concepts of freedom of speech and religion were found to emerge in the early elementary school years, and endorsements of freedoms were increasingly affected by social context and agent with age. College students were less likely than any other age group to affirm children's freedom of religion in the family context. Considerations of the mental competence and maturity of agents and the potential for harm to ensue from acting on freedoms played an important part in the decisions of older, but not younger, participants.

  2. An analysis of the masking of speech by competing speech using self-report data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Agus, Trevor R; Akeroyd, Michael A; Noble, William; Bhullar, Navjot

    2009-01-01

    Many of the items in the "Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing" scale questionnaire [S. Gatehouse and W. Noble, Int. J. Audiol. 43, 85-99 (2004)] are concerned with speech understanding in a variety of backgrounds, both speech and nonspeech. To study if this self-report data reflected informational masking, previously collected data on 414 people were analyzed. The lowest scores (greatest difficulties) were found for the two items in which there were two speech targets, with successively higher scores for competing speech (six items), energetic masking (one item), and no masking (three items). The results suggest significant masking by competing speech in everyday listening situations.

  3. Adolescents' and young adults' conceptions of civil liberties: freedom of speech and religion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Helwig, C C

    1995-02-01

    This study examined adolescents' and young adults' conceptions of freedom of speech and religion (civil liberties). 48 adolescents and young adults in 3 grade levels (mean ages 12-8, 16-10, and 19-6) were administered a structured interview containing assessments of civil liberties in general, in straightforward (unconflicted) applications, and in conflict with other social and moral concerns, including law, physical and psychological harm, and equality of opportunity. Freedom of speech and religion were conceptualized as universal rights and applied to social events in unconflicted contexts at all ages. A diverse array of rationales, differentiated according to type of freedom, were used at all ages to ground conceptions of universal freedoms. Judgments of civil liberties in conflicts exhibited several sources of variation, including developmental differences, situational or contextual variation determined by the particular types of issues in conflict, and individual differences. Results are consistent with the proposition that judgments of civil liberties reflect age-related patterns of coordination of delimited social and moral concepts rather than general orientations.

  4. Neural pathways for visual speech perception

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lynne E Bernstein

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines the questions, what levels of speech can be perceived visually, and how is visual speech represented by the brain? Review of the literature leads to the conclusions that every level of psycholinguistic speech structure (i.e., phonetic features, phonemes, syllables, words, and prosody can be perceived visually, although individuals differ in their abilities to do so; and that there are visual modality-specific representations of speech qua speech in higher-level vision brain areas. That is, the visual system represents the modal patterns of visual speech. The suggestion that the auditory speech pathway receives and represents visual speech is examined in light of neuroimaging evidence on the auditory speech pathways. We outline the generally agreed-upon organization of the visual ventral and dorsal pathways and examine several types of visual processing that might be related to speech through those pathways, specifically, face and body, orthography, and sign language processing. In this context, we examine the visual speech processing literature, which reveals widespread diverse patterns activity in posterior temporal cortices in response to visual speech stimuli. We outline a model of the visual and auditory speech pathways and make several suggestions: (1 The visual perception of speech relies on visual pathway representations of speech qua speech. (2 A proposed site of these representations, the temporal visual speech area (TVSA has been demonstrated in posterior temporal cortex, ventral and posterior to multisensory posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS. (3 Given that visual speech has dynamic and configural features, its representations in feedforward visual pathways are expected to integrate these features, possibly in TVSA.

  5. Foreign Investors Able to Establish Foreign- exclusively Exhibition Corporations

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2005-01-01

    Foreign Investors Able to Establish Foreign-exclusively Exhibition Corporations In Feb, Ministry of Commerce issued its 1st decree on temporary regulation for foreign-investing corporations; the regulation allows foreign investors to set up foreign-investing convention & exhibition corporations exclusively or through cooperation with other Chinese corporations, enterprises or organizations. With legal protection on their regulatory management and legal rights, these foreign-investing corporations are in the charge of Department of Foreign Investment Administration, Ministry of Commerce.

  6. U.S. Foreign Policy in Clinton and Trump’s presidential campaign. Discourses on ISIS in the media

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Isabel Rodríguez Toribio

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available During the last Race for the White House in the United States of America, ISIS terrorism has become the main concern among public opinion (Gallup, 2015. This issue has also been the most significant topic addressed in the campaign speeches on foreign policy. This article analyses Trump and Clinton’s discourses on ISIS within the media framework, as well as how this terrorist group and its acts are social constructed in the speeches. A qualitative methodology has been used. News published in the U.S. digital media, between November 2015 and February 2016, have been analysed through the critical discourse analysis theory. The main results of this research show how Trump has practiced a strategy based on provocation, discrimination and populism while Clinton has followed a much more argumentative and emotional path.

  7. Measuring emergency department nurses' attitudes towards deliberate self-harm using the Self-Harm Antipathy Scale.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Conlon, Mary

    2012-01-31

    The emergency department is an important gateway for the treatment of self-harm patients. Nurses\\' attitudes towards patients who self-harm can be negative and often nurses experience frustration, helplessness, ambivalence and antipathy. Patients are often dissatisfied with the care provided, and meeting with positive or negative attitudes greatly influences whether they seek additional help. A quantitative design was utilised to measure emergency department nurses\\' attitudes towards deliberate self-harm. The \\'Self-Harm Antipathy Scale\\

  8. Part-of-speech effects on text-to-speech synthesis

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Schlunz, GI

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available One of the goals of text-to-speech (TTS) systems is to produce natural-sounding synthesised speech. Towards this end various natural language processing (NLP) tasks are performed to model the prosodic aspects of the TTS voice. One of the fundamental...

  9. 75 FR 26701 - Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-05-12

    ...] Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and Speech Disabilities... proposed compensation rates for Interstate TRS, Speech-to-Speech Services (STS), Captioned Telephone... costs reported in the data submitted to NECA by VRS providers. In this regard, document DA 10-761 also...

  10. Casting light on harm reduction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jourdan, Michael

    2009-01-01

    Background: Harm reduction is commonly regarded as complementary to other drug problem responses - as the fourth tier. Yet even core examples of harm reduction such as the provision of injection equipment and methadone treatment has over and over encountered considerable opposition, and harm redu...

  11. Predicting automatic speech recognition performance over communication channels from instrumental speech quality and intelligibility scores

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gallardo, L.F.; Möller, S.; Beerends, J.

    2017-01-01

    The performance of automatic speech recognition based on coded-decoded speech heavily depends on the quality of the transmitted signals, determined by channel impairments. This paper examines relationships between speech recognition performance and measurements of speech quality and intelligibility

  12. [Non-speech oral motor treatment efficacy for children with developmental speech sound disorders].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ygual-Fernandez, A; Cervera-Merida, J F

    2016-01-01

    In the treatment of speech disorders by means of speech therapy two antagonistic methodological approaches are applied: non-verbal ones, based on oral motor exercises (OME), and verbal ones, which are based on speech processing tasks with syllables, phonemes and words. In Spain, OME programmes are called 'programas de praxias', and are widely used and valued by speech therapists. To review the studies conducted on the effectiveness of OME-based treatments applied to children with speech disorders and the theoretical arguments that could justify, or not, their usefulness. Over the last few decades evidence has been gathered about the lack of efficacy of this approach to treat developmental speech disorders and pronunciation problems in populations without any neurological alteration of motor functioning. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has advised against its use taking into account the principles of evidence-based practice. The knowledge gathered to date on motor control shows that the pattern of mobility and its corresponding organisation in the brain are different in speech and other non-verbal functions linked to nutrition and breathing. Neither the studies on their effectiveness nor the arguments based on motor control studies recommend the use of OME-based programmes for the treatment of pronunciation problems in children with developmental language disorders.

  13. Alcohol harm reduction in Europe

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Herring, Rachel; Betsy, Thom; Beccaria, Franca

    2010-01-01

    The EMCDDA’s 10th scientific monograph, entitled Harm reduction: evidence, impacts and challenges provides a comprehensive overview of the harm reduction field. Part I of the monograph looks back at the emergence of harm reduction approaches and their diffusion, and explores the concept from diff...

  14. 75 FR 54040 - Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-09-03

    ...] Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and Speech Disabilities...; speech-to-speech (STS); pay-per-call (900) calls; types of calls; and equal access to interexchange... of a report, due April 16, 2011, addressing whether it is necessary for the waivers to remain in...

  15. Harm and the Boundaries of Disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGivern, Patrick; Sorial, Sarah

    2017-08-01

    What is the relationship between harm and disease? Discussions of the relationship between harm and disease typically suffer from two shortcomings. First, they offer relatively little analysis of the concept of harm itself, focusing instead on examples of clear cases of harm such as death and dismemberment. This makes it difficult to evaluate such accounts in borderline cases, where the putative harms are less severe. Second, they assume that harm-based accounts of disease must be understood normatively rather than naturalistically, in the sense that they are inherently value based. This makes such accounts vulnerable to more general objections of normative accounts of disease. Here we draw on an influential account of harm from the philosophy of law to develop a harm-based account of disease that overcomes both of these shortcomings. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  16. Harm reduction principles for healthcare settings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mary Hawk

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Harm reduction refers to interventions aimed at reducing the negative effects of health behaviors without necessarily extinguishing the problematic health behaviors completely. The vast majority of the harm reduction literature focuses on the harms of drug use and on specific harm reduction strategies, such as syringe exchange, rather than on the harm reduction philosophy as a whole. Given that a harm reduction approach can address other risk behaviors that often occur alongside drug use and that harm reduction principles have been applied to harms such as sex work, eating disorders, and tobacco use, a natural evolution of the harm reduction philosophy is to extend it to other health risk behaviors and to a broader healthcare audience. Methods Building on the extant literature, we used data from in-depth qualitative interviews with 23 patients and 17 staff members from an HIV clinic in the USA to describe harm reduction principles for use in healthcare settings. Results We defined six principles of harm reduction and generalized them for use in healthcare settings with patients beyond those who use illicit substances. The principles include humanism, pragmatism, individualism, autonomy, incrementalism, and accountability without termination. For each of these principles, we present a definition, a description of how healthcare providers can deliver interventions informed by the principle, and examples of how each principle may be applied in the healthcare setting. Conclusion This paper is one of the firsts to provide a comprehensive set of principles for universal harm reduction as a conceptual approach for healthcare provision. Applying harm reduction principles in healthcare settings may improve clinical care outcomes given that the quality of the provider-patient relationship is known to impact health outcomes and treatment adherence. Harm reduction can be a universal precaution applied to all individuals regardless of

  17. Harm reduction principles for healthcare settings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hawk, Mary; Coulter, Robert W S; Egan, James E; Fisk, Stuart; Reuel Friedman, M; Tula, Monique; Kinsky, Suzanne

    2017-10-24

    Harm reduction refers to interventions aimed at reducing the negative effects of health behaviors without necessarily extinguishing the problematic health behaviors completely. The vast majority of the harm reduction literature focuses on the harms of drug use and on specific harm reduction strategies, such as syringe exchange, rather than on the harm reduction philosophy as a whole. Given that a harm reduction approach can address other risk behaviors that often occur alongside drug use and that harm reduction principles have been applied to harms such as sex work, eating disorders, and tobacco use, a natural evolution of the harm reduction philosophy is to extend it to other health risk behaviors and to a broader healthcare audience. Building on the extant literature, we used data from in-depth qualitative interviews with 23 patients and 17 staff members from an HIV clinic in the USA to describe harm reduction principles for use in healthcare settings. We defined six principles of harm reduction and generalized them for use in healthcare settings with patients beyond those who use illicit substances. The principles include humanism, pragmatism, individualism, autonomy, incrementalism, and accountability without termination. For each of these principles, we present a definition, a description of how healthcare providers can deliver interventions informed by the principle, and examples of how each principle may be applied in the healthcare setting. This paper is one of the firsts to provide a comprehensive set of principles for universal harm reduction as a conceptual approach for healthcare provision. Applying harm reduction principles in healthcare settings may improve clinical care outcomes given that the quality of the provider-patient relationship is known to impact health outcomes and treatment adherence. Harm reduction can be a universal precaution applied to all individuals regardless of their disclosure of negative health behaviors, given that health

  18. Speech Acquisition and Automatic Speech Recognition for Integrated Spacesuit Audio Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Yiteng; Chen, Jingdong; Chen, Shaoyan

    2010-01-01

    A voice-command human-machine interface system has been developed for spacesuit extravehicular activity (EVA) missions. A multichannel acoustic signal processing method has been created for distant speech acquisition in noisy and reverberant environments. This technology reduces noise by exploiting differences in the statistical nature of signal (i.e., speech) and noise that exists in the spatial and temporal domains. As a result, the automatic speech recognition (ASR) accuracy can be improved to the level at which crewmembers would find the speech interface useful. The developed speech human/machine interface will enable both crewmember usability and operational efficiency. It can enjoy a fast rate of data/text entry, small overall size, and can be lightweight. In addition, this design will free the hands and eyes of a suited crewmember. The system components and steps include beam forming/multi-channel noise reduction, single-channel noise reduction, speech feature extraction, feature transformation and normalization, feature compression, model adaption, ASR HMM (Hidden Markov Model) training, and ASR decoding. A state-of-the-art phoneme recognizer can obtain an accuracy rate of 65 percent when the training and testing data are free of noise. When it is used in spacesuits, the rate drops to about 33 percent. With the developed microphone array speech-processing technologies, the performance is improved and the phoneme recognition accuracy rate rises to 44 percent. The recognizer can be further improved by combining the microphone array and HMM model adaptation techniques and using speech samples collected from inside spacesuits. In addition, arithmetic complexity models for the major HMMbased ASR components were developed. They can help real-time ASR system designers select proper tasks when in the face of constraints in computational resources.

  19. Cosmopolitanism and foreign policy for health: ethics for and beyond the state.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lencucha, Raphael

    2013-07-08

    Foreign policy holds great potential to improve the health of a global citizenship. Our contemporary political order is, in part, characterized by sovereign states acting either in opposition or cooperation with other sovereign states. This order is also characterized by transnational efforts to address transnational issues such as those featured so prominently in the area of global health, such as the spread of infectious disease, health worker migration and the movement of health-harming products. These two features of the current order understandably create tension for truly global initiatives. National security has become the dominant ethical frame underlying the health-based foreign policy of many states, despite the transnational nature of many contemporary health challenges. This ethical approach engages global health as a means to achieving national security objectives. Implicit in this ethical frame is the version of humanity that dichotomizes between "us" and "them". What has been left out of this discourse, for the most part, is the role that foreign policy can play in extending the responsibility of states to protect and promote health of the other, for the sake of the other. The principal purpose of this paper is to review arguments for a cosmopolitan ethics of health-based foreign policy. I will argue that health-based foreign policy that is motivated by security interests is lacking both morally and practically to further global health goals. In other words, a cosmopolitan ethic is not only intrinsically superior as a moral ideal, but also has potential to contribute to utilitarian ends. This paper draws on the cosmopolitanism literature to build robust support for foreign policies that contribute to sustainable systems of global health governance.

  20. Environmental Contamination of Normal Speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harley, Trevor A.

    1990-01-01

    Environmentally contaminated speech errors (irrelevant words or phrases derived from the speaker's environment and erroneously incorporated into speech) are hypothesized to occur at a high level of speech processing, but with a relatively late insertion point. The data indicate that speech production processes are not independent of other…

  1. Emotionally conditioning the target-speech voice enhances recognition of the target speech under "cocktail-party" listening conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Lingxi; Bao, Xiaohan; Chen, Jing; Qu, Tianshu; Wu, Xihong; Li, Liang

    2018-05-01

    Under a noisy "cocktail-party" listening condition with multiple people talking, listeners can use various perceptual/cognitive unmasking cues to improve recognition of the target speech against informational speech-on-speech masking. One potential unmasking cue is the emotion expressed in a speech voice, by means of certain acoustical features. However, it was unclear whether emotionally conditioning a target-speech voice that has none of the typical acoustical features of emotions (i.e., an emotionally neutral voice) can be used by listeners for enhancing target-speech recognition under speech-on-speech masking conditions. In this study we examined the recognition of target speech against a two-talker speech masker both before and after the emotionally neutral target voice was paired with a loud female screaming sound that has a marked negative emotional valence. The results showed that recognition of the target speech (especially the first keyword in a target sentence) was significantly improved by emotionally conditioning the target speaker's voice. Moreover, the emotional unmasking effect was independent of the unmasking effect of the perceived spatial separation between the target speech and the masker. Also, (skin conductance) electrodermal responses became stronger after emotional learning when the target speech and masker were perceptually co-located, suggesting an increase of listening efforts when the target speech was informationally masked. These results indicate that emotionally conditioning the target speaker's voice does not change the acoustical parameters of the target-speech stimuli, but the emotionally conditioned vocal features can be used as cues for unmasking target speech.

  2. Multilevel Analysis in Analyzing Speech Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guddattu, Vasudeva; Krishna, Y.

    2011-01-01

    The speech produced by human vocal tract is a complex acoustic signal, with diverse applications in phonetics, speech synthesis, automatic speech recognition, speaker identification, communication aids, speech pathology, speech perception, machine translation, hearing research, rehabilitation and assessment of communication disorders and many…

  3. Perceived Liveliness and Speech Comprehensibility in Aphasia: The Effects of Direct Speech in Auditory Narratives

    Science.gov (United States)

    Groenewold, Rimke; Bastiaanse, Roelien; Nickels, Lyndsey; Huiskes, Mike

    2014-01-01

    Background: Previous studies have shown that in semi-spontaneous speech, individuals with Broca's and anomic aphasia produce relatively many direct speech constructions. It has been claimed that in "healthy" communication direct speech constructions contribute to the liveliness, and indirectly to the comprehensibility, of speech.…

  4. Speech Enhancement by MAP Spectral Amplitude Estimation Using a Super-Gaussian Speech Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lotter Thomas

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available This contribution presents two spectral amplitude estimators for acoustical background noise suppression based on maximum a posteriori estimation and super-Gaussian statistical modelling of the speech DFT amplitudes. The probability density function of the speech spectral amplitude is modelled with a simple parametric function, which allows a high approximation accuracy for Laplace- or Gamma-distributed real and imaginary parts of the speech DFT coefficients. Also, the statistical model can be adapted to optimally fit the distribution of the speech spectral amplitudes for a specific noise reduction system. Based on the super-Gaussian statistical model, computationally efficient maximum a posteriori speech estimators are derived, which outperform the commonly applied Ephraim-Malah algorithm.

  5. Exploring the role of brain oscillations in speech perception in noise: Intelligibility of isochronously retimed speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vincent Aubanel

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available A growing body of evidence shows that brain oscillations track speech. This mechanism is thought to maximise processing efficiency by allocating resources to important speech information, effectively parsing speech into units of appropriate granularity for further decoding. However, some aspects of this mechanism remain unclear. First, while periodicity is an intrinsic property of this physiological mechanism, speech is only quasi-periodic, so it is not clear whether periodicity would present an advantage in processing. Second, it is still a matter of debate which aspect of speech triggers or maintains cortical entrainment, from bottom-up cues such as fluctuations of the amplitude envelope of speech to higher level linguistic cues such as syntactic structure. We present data from a behavioural experiment assessing the effect of isochronous retiming of speech on speech perception in noise. Two types of anchor points were defined for retiming speech, namely syllable onsets and amplitude envelope peaks. For each anchor point type, retiming was implemented at two hierarchical levels, a slow time scale around 2.5 Hz and a fast time scale around 4 Hz. Results show that while any temporal distortion resulted in reduced speech intelligibility, isochronous speech anchored to P-centers (approximated by stressed syllable vowel onsets was significantly more intelligible than a matched anisochronous retiming, suggesting a facilitative role of periodicity defined on linguistically motivated units in processing speech in noise.

  6. Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs)

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... toxins that may harm or kill fish and marine animals. Humans who eat shellfish contaminated with HAB toxins ... toxins that may harm or kill fish and marine animals. Humans who eat shellfish containing toxins produced by ...

  7. Adolescent self-harm and risk factors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Jixiang; Song, Jianwei; Wang, Jing

    2016-12-01

    This study aims to define the characteristics of adolescents who have engaged in self-harm behavior and ascertain the risk factors. From January 2013 to January 2014, 4,176 adolescents from senior middle schools in Linyi, China, were administered four questionnaire surveys to ascertain the following: incidence of self-harm behavior regarding the frequency of different self-harm behaviors by group (never/one to five times/greater than five times in the last 6 months) and then comparing the self-harm behavior of the different subgroups; symptom self-check, comparing the differences between the adolescents with self-harm behavior and without in nine subscales (somatization, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, fear, paranoid, and psychosis); Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Check List scores; and Egna Minnenav Barndoms Uppfostran (EMBU) scores. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the risk factors of self-harm in adolescents. The incidence of adolescent self-harm was 27.60%; the occurrence of adolescent self-harm was closely related to their mental health status, stressful life events, and EMBU. Being female, an urban student, or an only child; having poor school performance or experiences of stressful life events, harsh parenting styles, or excessive interference; and poor mental health were the risk factors for adolescent self-harm. The incidence of adolescent self-harm was high, and their mental health status, stressful life events, and EMBU affected the occurrence of adolescent self-harm, which is an issue that needs greater attention. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

  8. Ear, Hearing and Speech

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Poulsen, Torben

    2000-01-01

    An introduction is given to the the anatomy and the function of the ear, basic psychoacoustic matters (hearing threshold, loudness, masking), the speech signal and speech intelligibility. The lecture note is written for the course: Fundamentals of Acoustics and Noise Control (51001)......An introduction is given to the the anatomy and the function of the ear, basic psychoacoustic matters (hearing threshold, loudness, masking), the speech signal and speech intelligibility. The lecture note is written for the course: Fundamentals of Acoustics and Noise Control (51001)...

  9. Music expertise shapes audiovisual temporal integration windows for speech, sinewave speech and music

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hwee Ling eLee

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available This psychophysics study used musicians as a model to investigate whether musical expertise shapes the temporal integration window for audiovisual speech, sinewave speech or music. Musicians and non-musicians judged the audiovisual synchrony of speech, sinewave analogues of speech, and music stimuli at 13 audiovisual stimulus onset asynchronies (±360, ±300 ±240, ±180, ±120, ±60, and 0 ms. Further, we manipulated the duration of the stimuli by presenting sentences/melodies or syllables/tones. Critically, musicians relative to non-musicians exhibited significantly narrower temporal integration windows for both music and sinewave speech. Further, the temporal integration window for music decreased with the amount of music practice, but not with age of acquisition. In other words, the more musicians practiced piano in the past three years, the more sensitive they became to the temporal misalignment of visual and auditory signals. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that music practicing fine-tunes the audiovisual temporal integration window to various extents depending on the stimulus class. While the effect of piano practicing was most pronounced for music, it also generalized to other stimulus classes such as sinewave speech and to a marginally significant degree to natural speech.

  10. The Significance of Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” for Chinese Foreign Policy: From “Tao Guang Yang Hui” to “Fen Fa You Wei”

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Camilla T. N.

    2015-01-01

    In order to gain a better understanding of the newer and more assertive features of Chinese foreign policy in recent years, this article examines Xi Jinping’s “Chinese dream” for clues of how the Chinese leadership sees China’s international role evolve. In their speeches and statements on the “C...

  11. Effect of gap detection threshold on consistency of speech in children with speech sound disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sayyahi, Fateme; Soleymani, Zahra; Akbari, Mohammad; Bijankhan, Mahmood; Dolatshahi, Behrooz

    2017-02-01

    The present study examined the relationship between gap detection threshold and speech error consistency in children with speech sound disorder. The participants were children five to six years of age who were categorized into three groups of typical speech, consistent speech disorder (CSD) and inconsistent speech disorder (ISD).The phonetic gap detection threshold test was used for this study, which is a valid test comprised six syllables with inter-stimulus intervals between 20-300ms. The participants were asked to listen to the recorded stimuli three times and indicate whether they heard one or two sounds. There was no significant difference between the typical and CSD groups (p=0.55), but there were significant differences in performance between the ISD and CSD groups and the ISD and typical groups (p=0.00). The ISD group discriminated between speech sounds at a higher threshold. Children with inconsistent speech errors could not distinguish speech sounds during time-limited phonetic discrimination. It is suggested that inconsistency in speech is a representation of inconsistency in auditory perception, which causes by high gap detection threshold. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Foreign Remittances, Foreign Direct Investment, Foreign Imports and Economic Growth in Pakistan: A Time Series Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Muhammad Tahir

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available This empirical research paper focuses on establishing a relationship between external determinants and economic growth of Pakistan economy. Empirical analyses are carried out with time series econometric techniques using data over the period of 1977-2013. The main finding is that external determinants such as foreign remittances, foreign direct investment, and foreign imports matter from a growth perspective. Foreign remittances and foreign direct investment have a significant positive role in the growth process of Pakistan economy. Furthermore, it is found that foreign imports have adversely influenced the economic growth of Pakistan. The study recommends that policy makers shall take appropriate steps to increase the inflow of both foreign remittances and foreign direct investment in order to achieve the long run economic growth.

  13. Speech Perception as a Multimodal Phenomenon

    OpenAIRE

    Rosenblum, Lawrence D.

    2008-01-01

    Speech perception is inherently multimodal. Visual speech (lip-reading) information is used by all perceivers and readily integrates with auditory speech. Imaging research suggests that the brain treats auditory and visual speech similarly. These findings have led some researchers to consider that speech perception works by extracting amodal information that takes the same form across modalities. From this perspective, speech integration is a property of the input information itself. Amodal s...

  14. Poor Speech Perception Is Not a Core Deficit of Childhood Apraxia of Speech: Preliminary Findings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zuk, Jennifer; Iuzzini-Seigel, Jenya; Cabbage, Kathryn; Green, Jordan R.; Hogan, Tiffany P.

    2018-01-01

    Purpose: Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is hypothesized to arise from deficits in speech motor planning and programming, but the influence of abnormal speech perception in CAS on these processes is debated. This study examined speech perception abilities among children with CAS with and without language impairment compared to those with…

  15. Principles of speech coding

    CERN Document Server

    Ogunfunmi, Tokunbo

    2010-01-01

    It is becoming increasingly apparent that all forms of communication-including voice-will be transmitted through packet-switched networks based on the Internet Protocol (IP). Therefore, the design of modern devices that rely on speech interfaces, such as cell phones and PDAs, requires a complete and up-to-date understanding of the basics of speech coding. Outlines key signal processing algorithms used to mitigate impairments to speech quality in VoIP networksOffering a detailed yet easily accessible introduction to the field, Principles of Speech Coding provides an in-depth examination of the

  16. Negative pragmatic transfer in Chinese students' complimentary speech acts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ren, Juanjuan; Gao, Xiaofang

    2012-02-01

    Summary.-This study was designed to examine negative pragmatic transfer of the speech act of English compliments by Chinese who learn English as a foreign language and to estimate the correlation between the amount of negative pragmatic transfer and English proficiency of the Chinese learners. Frequencies of students' performance showed that both in the favored compliments and the response strategies, differences were evident between Chinese English learners and native English speakers. This indicated that Chinese learners had trouble with the "slang" or "idioms" of the target language and tended to transfer negatively their L1 pragmatic norms to their L2 communication. Moreover, the favored compliment response strategies used by two groups of Chinese learners--who had different levels of English proficiency--differed, and negative pragmatic transfer decreased as proficiency in English increased.

  17. The Neural Bases of Difficult Speech Comprehension and Speech Production: Two Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) Meta-Analyses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adank, Patti

    2012-01-01

    The role of speech production mechanisms in difficult speech comprehension is the subject of on-going debate in speech science. Two Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) analyses were conducted on neuroimaging studies investigating difficult speech comprehension or speech production. Meta-analysis 1 included 10 studies contrasting comprehension…

  18. Metaheuristic applications to speech enhancement

    CERN Document Server

    Kunche, Prajna

    2016-01-01

    This book serves as a basic reference for those interested in the application of metaheuristics to speech enhancement. The major goal of the book is to explain the basic concepts of optimization methods and their use in heuristic optimization in speech enhancement to scientists, practicing engineers, and academic researchers in speech processing. The authors discuss why it has been a challenging problem for researchers to develop new enhancement algorithms that aid in the quality and intelligibility of degraded speech. They present powerful optimization methods to speech enhancement that can help to solve the noise reduction problems. Readers will be able to understand the fundamentals of speech processing as well as the optimization techniques, how the speech enhancement algorithms are implemented by utilizing optimization methods, and will be given the tools to develop new algorithms. The authors also provide a comprehensive literature survey regarding the topic.

  19. Systematic Studies of Modified Vocalization: The Effect of Speech Rate on Speech Production Measures during Metronome-Paced Speech in Persons Who Stutter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davidow, Jason H.

    2014-01-01

    Background: Metronome-paced speech results in the elimination, or substantial reduction, of stuttering moments. The cause of fluency during this fluency-inducing condition is unknown. Several investigations have reported changes in speech pattern characteristics from a control condition to a metronome-paced speech condition, but failure to control…

  20. TongueToSpeech (TTS): Wearable wireless assistive device for augmented speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marjanovic, Nicholas; Piccinini, Giacomo; Kerr, Kevin; Esmailbeigi, Hananeh

    2017-07-01

    Speech is an important aspect of human communication; individuals with speech impairment are unable to communicate vocally in real time. Our team has developed the TongueToSpeech (TTS) device with the goal of augmenting speech communication for the vocally impaired. The proposed device is a wearable wireless assistive device that incorporates a capacitive touch keyboard interface embedded inside a discrete retainer. This device connects to a computer, tablet or a smartphone via Bluetooth connection. The developed TTS application converts text typed by the tongue into audible speech. Our studies have concluded that an 8-contact point configuration between the tongue and the TTS device would yield the best user precision and speed performance. On average using the TTS device inside the oral cavity takes 2.5 times longer than the pointer finger using a T9 (Text on 9 keys) keyboard configuration to type the same phrase. In conclusion, we have developed a discrete noninvasive wearable device that allows the vocally impaired individuals to communicate in real time.

  1. Social eye gaze modulates processing of speech and co-speech gesture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holler, Judith; Schubotz, Louise; Kelly, Spencer; Hagoort, Peter; Schuetze, Manuela; Özyürek, Aslı

    2014-12-01

    In human face-to-face communication, language comprehension is a multi-modal, situated activity. However, little is known about how we combine information from different modalities during comprehension, and how perceived communicative intentions, often signaled through visual signals, influence this process. We explored this question by simulating a multi-party communication context in which a speaker alternated her gaze between two recipients. Participants viewed speech-only or speech+gesture object-related messages when being addressed (direct gaze) or unaddressed (gaze averted to other participant). They were then asked to choose which of two object images matched the speaker's preceding message. Unaddressed recipients responded significantly more slowly than addressees for speech-only utterances. However, perceiving the same speech accompanied by gestures sped unaddressed recipients up to a level identical to that of addressees. That is, when unaddressed recipients' speech processing suffers, gestures can enhance the comprehension of a speaker's message. We discuss our findings with respect to two hypotheses attempting to account for how social eye gaze may modulate multi-modal language comprehension. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. A positive psychology to cope with radicalisation and terrorism? A case study of the speech by Barack Obama at Cairo

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manuel Moyano

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, coping with radicalisation and jihadist terrorism has been at the forefront of the domestic and foreign policy agendas in Western societies. During this time, the influence that political leaders can exert in their interaction with institutions, citizens, and terrorist organizations has been demonstrated. We present a case study of the speech by Barak Obama on June 4, 2009 at the University of Cairo (“A New Beginning”. Its content and internal structure is analysed using the classification of virtues and strengths defined by Peterson and Seligman (2004 as a theoretical and conceptual reference within the framework of positive psychology. This speech marked a turning point in the relationship between the USA and the Arab-Muslim world and could be considered to be a genuine exercise in positive communication. Its implications are yet to be determined, because it continues to exert an influence on the Obama administration’s domestic and foreign policy. In a globalized and networking world in which risks and adversities require innovative responses, more than ever we suggest that social communication capable of promoting virtues and strengths associated with optimism, hope, confidence, strength, or vitality is needed more than ever.

  3. Electrophysiological evidence for speech-specific audiovisual integration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baart, Martijn; Stekelenburg, Jeroen J; Vroomen, Jean

    2014-01-01

    Lip-read speech is integrated with heard speech at various neural levels. Here, we investigated the extent to which lip-read induced modulations of the auditory N1 and P2 (measured with EEG) are indicative of speech-specific audiovisual integration, and we explored to what extent the ERPs were modulated by phonetic audiovisual congruency. In order to disentangle speech-specific (phonetic) integration from non-speech integration, we used Sine-Wave Speech (SWS) that was perceived as speech by half of the participants (they were in speech-mode), while the other half was in non-speech mode. Results showed that the N1 obtained with audiovisual stimuli peaked earlier than the N1 evoked by auditory-only stimuli. This lip-read induced speeding up of the N1 occurred for listeners in speech and non-speech mode. In contrast, if listeners were in speech-mode, lip-read speech also modulated the auditory P2, but not if listeners were in non-speech mode, thus revealing speech-specific audiovisual binding. Comparing ERPs for phonetically congruent audiovisual stimuli with ERPs for incongruent stimuli revealed an effect of phonetic stimulus congruency that started at ~200 ms after (in)congruence became apparent. Critically, akin to the P2 suppression, congruency effects were only observed if listeners were in speech mode, and not if they were in non-speech mode. Using identical stimuli, we thus confirm that audiovisual binding involves (partially) different neural mechanisms for sound processing in speech and non-speech mode. © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  4. Free Speech Yearbook 1978.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Phifer, Gregg, Ed.

    The 17 articles in this collection deal with theoretical and practical freedom of speech issues. The topics include: freedom of speech in Marquette Park, Illinois; Nazis in Skokie, Illinois; freedom of expression in the Confederate States of America; Robert M. LaFollette's arguments for free speech and the rights of Congress; the United States…

  5. Digital Self-Harm Among Adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patchin, Justin W; Hinduja, Sameer

    2017-12-01

    Despite increased media and scholarly attention to digital forms of aggression directed toward adolescents by their peers (e.g., cyberbullying), very little research has explored digital aggression directed toward oneself. "Digital self-harm" is the anonymous online posting, sending, or otherwise sharing of hurtful content about oneself. The current study examined the extent of digital self-harm among adolescents. Survey data were obtained in 2016 from a nationally representative sample of 5,593 American middle and high school students (12-17 years old). Logistic regression analysis was used to identify correlates of participation in digital self-harm. Qualitative responses were also reviewed to better understand motivations for digital self-harm. About 6% of students have anonymously posted something online about themselves that was mean. Males were significantly more likely to report participation (7.1% compared to 5.3%). Several statistically significant correlates of involvement in digital self-harm were identified, including sexual orientation, experience with school bullying and cyberbullying, drug use, participation in various forms of adolescent deviance, and depressive symptoms. Digital self-harm is a new problem that demands additional scholarly attention. A deeper inquiry as to the motivations behind this behavior, and how it correlates to offline self-harm and suicidal ideation, can help direct mental health professionals toward informed prevention approaches. Copyright © 2017 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. Visual context enhanced. The joint contribution of iconic gestures and visible speech to degraded speech comprehension.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Drijvers, L.; Özyürek, A.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: This study investigated whether and to what extent iconic co-speech gestures contribute to information from visible speech to enhance degraded speech comprehension at different levels of noise-vocoding. Previous studies of the contributions of these 2 visual articulators to speech

  7. 17 CFR 240.3b-4 - Definition of “foreign government,” “foreign issuer” and “foreign private issuer”.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... government,â âforeign issuerâ and âforeign private issuerâ. 240.3b-4 Section 240.3b-4 Commodity and... Definition of “foreign government,” “foreign issuer” and “foreign private issuer”. (a) The term foreign... country. (c) The term foreign private issuer means any foreign issuer other than a foreign government...

  8. Multisensory integration of speech sounds with letters vs. visual speech : only visual speech induces the mismatch negativity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Stekelenburg, J.J.; Keetels, M.N.; Vroomen, J.H.M.

    2018-01-01

    Numerous studies have demonstrated that the vision of lip movements can alter the perception of auditory speech syllables (McGurk effect). While there is ample evidence for integration of text and auditory speech, there are only a few studies on the orthographic equivalent of the McGurk effect.

  9. Speech Research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Several articles addressing topics in speech research are presented. The topics include: exploring the functional significance of physiological tremor: A biospectroscopic approach; differences between experienced and inexperienced listeners to deaf speech; a language-oriented view of reading and its disabilities; Phonetic factors in letter detection; categorical perception; Short-term recall by deaf signers of American sign language; a common basis for auditory sensory storage in perception and immediate memory; phonological awareness and verbal short-term memory; initiation versus execution time during manual and oral counting by stutterers; trading relations in the perception of speech by five-year-old children; the role of the strap muscles in pitch lowering; phonetic validation of distinctive features; consonants and syllable boundaires; and vowel information in postvocalic frictions.

  10. Represented Speech in Qualitative Health Research

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Musaeus, Peter

    2017-01-01

    Represented speech refers to speech where we reference somebody. Represented speech is an important phenomenon in everyday conversation, health care communication, and qualitative research. This case will draw first from a case study on physicians’ workplace learning and second from a case study...... on nurses’ apprenticeship learning. The aim of the case is to guide the qualitative researcher to use own and others’ voices in the interview and to be sensitive to represented speech in everyday conversation. Moreover, reported speech matters to health professionals who aim to represent the voice...... of their patients. Qualitative researchers and students might learn to encourage interviewees to elaborate different voices or perspectives. Qualitative researchers working with natural speech might pay attention to how people talk and use represented speech. Finally, represented speech might be relevant...

  11. Spectral integration in speech and non-speech sounds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jacewicz, Ewa

    2005-04-01

    Spectral integration (or formant averaging) was proposed in vowel perception research to account for the observation that a reduction of the intensity of one of two closely spaced formants (as in /u/) produced a predictable shift in vowel quality [Delattre et al., Word 8, 195-210 (1952)]. A related observation was reported in psychoacoustics, indicating that when the components of a two-tone periodic complex differ in amplitude and frequency, its perceived pitch is shifted toward that of the more intense tone [Helmholtz, App. XIV (1875/1948)]. Subsequent research in both fields focused on the frequency interval that separates these two spectral components, in an attempt to determine the size of the bandwidth for spectral integration to occur. This talk will review the accumulated evidence for and against spectral integration within the hypothesized limit of 3.5 Bark for static and dynamic signals in speech perception and psychoacoustics. Based on similarities in the processing of speech and non-speech sounds, it is suggested that spectral integration may reflect a general property of the auditory system. A larger frequency bandwidth, possibly close to 3.5 Bark, may be utilized in integrating acoustic information, including speech, complex signals, or sound quality of a violin.

  12. Measurement of speech parameters in casual speech of dementia patients

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ossewaarde, Roelant; Jonkers, Roel; Jalvingh, Fedor; Bastiaanse, Yvonne

    Measurement of speech parameters in casual speech of dementia patients Roelant Adriaan Ossewaarde1,2, Roel Jonkers1, Fedor Jalvingh1,3, Roelien Bastiaanse1 1CLCG, University of Groningen (NL); 2HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (NL); 33St. Marienhospital - Vechta, Geriatric Clinic Vechta

  13. Deprivation as un-experienced harm?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Keerus, Külli; Gjerris, Mickey; Röcklinsberg, Helena

    2017-01-01

    Tom Regan encapsulated his principle of harm as a prima facie direct duty not to harm experiencing subjects of a life. However, his consideration of harm as deprivation, one example of which is loss of freedom, can easily be interpreted as a harm, which may not be experienced by its subject....... This creates a gap between Regan’s criterion for moral status and his account of what our duties are. However, in comparison with three basic paradigms of welfare known in nonhuman animal welfare science, Regan’s understanding coheres with a modified version of a feelings-based paradigm: not only the immediate...... feelings of satisfaction, but also future opportunities to have such feelings, must be taken into account. Such an interpretation is compatible with Regan’s understanding of harm as deprivation. The potential source of confusion, however, lies in Regan’s own possible argumentative mistakes....

  14. Predictors for repeat self-harm and suicide among older people within 12 months of a self-harm presentation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheung, Gary; Foster, Gisele; de Beer, Wayne; Gee, Susan; Hawkes, Tracey; Rimkeit, Sally; Tan, Yu Mwee; Merry, Sally; Sundram, Frederick

    2017-08-01

    A past history of self-harm is a significant risk factor for suicide in older people. The aims of this study are to (i) characterize older people who present with self-harm to emergency departments (EDs); and (ii) determine the predictors for repeat self-harm and suicide. Demographic and clinical data were retrospectively collected on older people (age 65+ years), who presented to seven EDs in New Zealand following an episode of self-harm between 1st July 2010 and 30th June 2013. In addition, 12-month follow-up information on repeat self-harm and suicide was collected. The sample included 339 older people (55.2% female) with an age range of 65-96 years (mean age = 75.0; SD = 7.6). Overdose (68.7%) was the most common method of self-harm. 76.4% of the self-harm cases were classified as suicide attempts. Perceived physical illness (47.8%) and family discord (34.5%) were the most common stressors. 12.7% of older people repeated self-harm and 2.1% died by suicide within 12 months. Older people who had a positive blood alcohol reading (OR = 3.87, 95% Cl = 1.35-11.12, p = 0.012) and were already with mental health services at the index self-harm (OR = 2.73, 95% Cl = 1.20-6.25, p = 0.047) were more likely to repeat self-harm/suicide within 12 months. Older people who self-harm are at very high risk of repeat self-harm and suicide. Screening and assessment for alcohol use disorders should be routinely performed following a self-harm presentation, along with providing structured psychological treatment as an adjunct to pharmacological treatment for depression and interventions to improve the person's resilience resources.

  15. Characteristics of Self-Harm Behaviour among Identified Self-Harming Youth in Care

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grenville, Jeffrey; Goodman, Deborah; Macpherson, Alison K.

    2012-01-01

    The objective of this study was to describe deliberate self-harming (DSH) characteristics in a child-welfare population identified as having threatened or completed self-harm. Secondary data from 621 serious occurrence reports (SOR) that documented 2004-2007 DSH incidents and DSH threats with 252 Canadian youth in care (Y-INC) of the Children's…

  16. Development of The Viking Speech Scale to classify the speech of children with cerebral palsy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pennington, Lindsay; Virella, Daniel; Mjøen, Tone; da Graça Andrada, Maria; Murray, Janice; Colver, Allan; Himmelmann, Kate; Rackauskaite, Gija; Greitane, Andra; Prasauskiene, Audrone; Andersen, Guro; de la Cruz, Javier

    2013-10-01

    Surveillance registers monitor the prevalence of cerebral palsy and the severity of resulting impairments across time and place. The motor disorders of cerebral palsy can affect children's speech production and limit their intelligibility. We describe the development of a scale to classify children's speech performance for use in cerebral palsy surveillance registers, and its reliability across raters and across time. Speech and language therapists, other healthcare professionals and parents classified the speech of 139 children with cerebral palsy (85 boys, 54 girls; mean age 6.03 years, SD 1.09) from observation and previous knowledge of the children. Another group of health professionals rated children's speech from information in their medical notes. With the exception of parents, raters reclassified children's speech at least four weeks after their initial classification. Raters were asked to rate how easy the scale was to use and how well the scale described the child's speech production using Likert scales. Inter-rater reliability was moderate to substantial (k>.58 for all comparisons). Test-retest reliability was substantial to almost perfect for all groups (k>.68). Over 74% of raters found the scale easy or very easy to use; 66% of parents and over 70% of health care professionals judged the scale to describe children's speech well or very well. We conclude that the Viking Speech Scale is a reliable tool to describe the speech performance of children with cerebral palsy, which can be applied through direct observation of children or through case note review. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Visual Context Enhanced: The Joint Contribution of Iconic Gestures and Visible Speech to Degraded Speech Comprehension

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drijvers, Linda; Ozyurek, Asli

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: This study investigated whether and to what extent iconic co-speech gestures contribute to information from visible speech to enhance degraded speech comprehension at different levels of noise-vocoding. Previous studies of the contributions of these 2 visual articulators to speech comprehension have only been performed separately. Method:…

  18. The EU vs. Russia in the foreign policy discourse of Armenia: the fragility of normative power or the power of Russian coercion?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aram TERZYAN

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Constructivist-driven conventional wisdom posits that ideas and beliefs are pivotal to shaping foreign policy trajectories. Thus, the explanatory power ascribed to material forces falls back on ideas and cultural practices (Wendt, 1999. Whereas the case of Armenia, characterized by the co-existence of European foreign policy identity with Russia-led foreign policy preferences suggests that identity and beliefs may well be outweighed by material forces. This paper seeks to explain the evolution of how the European Union (EU and Russia have been conceptualised within the foreign policy discourse of Armenia. The study relies on the critical discourse analysis of relevant speeches and statements of Armenia’s foreign policy-makers and, particularly, on those of the President. It scrutinizes the core notions and discursive structures, employed in the Armenian foreign policy discourse for justifying the choice of the Russia-led path. It suggests that Armenia’s deviation from the identity driven path towards the EU has been broadly justified in terms of the country’s economic and, particularly, security needs, which prompted to treat Russia as an indispensable ally. Yet, a closer scrutiny of external constraints indicates that Russian coercive policy left little room for Armenia to achieve a Russian-European balance.

  19. Speech enhancement using emotion dependent codebooks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Naidu, D.H.R.; Srinivasan, S.

    2012-01-01

    Several speech enhancement approaches utilize trained models of clean speech data, such as codebooks, Gaussian mixtures, and hidden Markov models. These models are typically trained on neutral clean speech data, without any emotion. However, in practical scenarios, emotional speech is a common

  20. Foreign Body Retrieval

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... Physician Resources Professions Site Index A-Z Foreign Body Retrieval Foreign body retrieval is the removal of ... foreign body detection and removal? What is Foreign Body Retrieval? Foreign body retrieval involves the removal of ...

  1. A longitudinal study of adult foreign language learning

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Andreas Højlund; Horn, Nynne Thorup; Sørensen, Stine Derdau

    Models of speech learning suggest that adaptations to foreign language sound categories should happen early in the acquisition process. Results from laboratory language training show effects on non-native perception within one to three weeks of training. Results from linguistic immersion studies...... show differences in adaptations when contrasting averages of 1-2 yrs of experience with 6-7 yrs of experience. We investigated this apparent discrepancy in a longitudinal study on Danish language officer cadets learning either Arabic (MSA and Egyptian dialect) or Dari (Afghan Farsi) through intensive...... (emphatic frication) and a phonemic Dari contrast (fricative voicing) as stimuli for both groups. We saw an effect of learning on the Dari learners’ identification of the Dari stimuli already after three weeks of language training, which was sustained, but not improved, after six and 20 months. The extents...

  2. Linguistic contributions to speech-on-speech masking for native and non-native listeners: Language familiarity and semantic content

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brouwer, Susanne; Van Engen, Kristin J.; Calandruccio, Lauren; Bradlow, Ann R.

    2012-01-01

    This study examined whether speech-on-speech masking is sensitive to variation in the degree of similarity between the target and the masker speech. Three experiments investigated whether speech-in-speech recognition varies across different background speech languages (English vs Dutch) for both English and Dutch targets, as well as across variation in the semantic content of the background speech (meaningful vs semantically anomalous sentences), and across variation in listener status vis-à-vis the target and masker languages (native, non-native, or unfamiliar). The results showed that the more similar the target speech is to the masker speech (e.g., same vs different language, same vs different levels of semantic content), the greater the interference on speech recognition accuracy. Moreover, the listener’s knowledge of the target and the background language modulate the size of the release from masking. These factors had an especially strong effect on masking effectiveness in highly unfavorable listening conditions. Overall this research provided evidence that that the degree of target-masker similarity plays a significant role in speech-in-speech recognition. The results also give insight into how listeners assign their resources differently depending on whether they are listening to their first or second language. PMID:22352516

  3. Speech-specificity of two audiovisual integration effects

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Eskelund, Kasper; Tuomainen, Jyrki; Andersen, Tobias

    2010-01-01

    Seeing the talker’s articulatory mouth movements can influence the auditory speech percept both in speech identification and detection tasks. Here we show that these audiovisual integration effects also occur for sine wave speech (SWS), which is an impoverished speech signal that naïve observers...... often fail to perceive as speech. While audiovisual integration in the identification task only occurred when observers were informed of the speech-like nature of SWS, integration occurred in the detection task both for informed and naïve observers. This shows that both speech-specific and general...... mechanisms underlie audiovisual integration of speech....

  4. Helping Self-Harming Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Selekman, Matthew D.

    2009-01-01

    Approximately 14 to 17 percent of adolescents today self-harm, deliberately cutting, burning, or bruising themselves. Most self-harming adolescents use the behavior as a coping strategy to get immediate relief from emotional distress or other stressors in their lives. Stressors include fitting in with peers, activity and homework overload, fears…

  5. Advocate: A Distributed Architecture for Speech-to-Speech Translation

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-01-01

    tecture, are either wrapped natural-language processing ( NLP ) components or objects developed from scratch using the architecture’s API. GATE is...framework, we put together a demonstration Arabic -to- English speech translation system using both internally developed ( Arabic speech recognition and MT...conditions of our Arabic S2S demonstration system described earlier. Once again, the data size was varied and eighty identical requests were

  6. Role of History in Vladimir Putin’s Foreign Policy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oleg N. Barabanov

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The subject of the article is dedicated to the evolution of the visible accent on the role of history and historico-civilizational heritage in formulation of Russia's foreign policy strategy in conceptual speeches of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin in 2013-2015. His thesis on Russia as a country-civilization, proclaimed in Summer-Autumn 2013, became the basis for serious practical steps for activization of the foreign policy of Russia starting from 2014. It became clear mainly during the Ukrainian crisis, but also other key international events of the last two years. Another significant element of such a strategy was the thesis on the sacrality of history for Russia, exceeding far beyond a traditional focus on using the historical memory in current politics, that one can see in other states' examples. The consequence of that thesis is the feeling of specific historical responsibility in front of Russia for state politicians, also formulated by President Putin. All this could be considered as a new dimension of the moral basis of politics. One more focus of the article is on the role of new public political panels for proclaiming such a historically motivated politics, like the Valdai Discussion Club, etc.

  7. Using the Speech Transmission Index for predicting non-native speech intelligibility

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wijngaarden, S.J. van; Bronkhorst, A.W.; Houtgast, T.; Steeneken, H.J.M.

    2004-01-01

    While the Speech Transmission Index ~STI! is widely applied for prediction of speech intelligibility in room acoustics and telecommunication engineering, it is unclear how to interpret STI values when non-native talkers or listeners are involved. Based on subjectively measured psychometric functions

  8. Speech Planning Happens before Speech Execution: Online Reaction Time Methods in the Study of Apraxia of Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maas, Edwin; Mailend, Marja-Liisa

    2012-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this article is to present an argument for the use of online reaction time (RT) methods to the study of apraxia of speech (AOS) and to review the existing small literature in this area and the contributions it has made to our fundamental understanding of speech planning (deficits) in AOS. Method: Following a brief…

  9. Predicting speech intelligibility in adverse conditions: evaluation of the speech-based envelope power spectrum model

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jørgensen, Søren; Dau, Torsten

    2011-01-01

    conditions by comparing predictions to measured data from [Kjems et al. (2009). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 126 (3), 1415-1426] where speech is mixed with four different interferers, including speech-shaped noise, bottle noise, car noise, and cafe noise. The model accounts well for the differences in intelligibility......The speech-based envelope power spectrum model (sEPSM) [Jørgensen and Dau (2011). J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 130 (3), 1475–1487] estimates the envelope signal-to-noise ratio (SNRenv) of distorted speech and accurately describes the speech recognition thresholds (SRT) for normal-hearing listeners...... observed for the different interferers. None of the standardized models successfully describe these data....

  10. Improving on hidden Markov models: An articulatorily constrained, maximum likelihood approach to speech recognition and speech coding

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hogden, J.

    1996-11-05

    The goal of the proposed research is to test a statistical model of speech recognition that incorporates the knowledge that speech is produced by relatively slow motions of the tongue, lips, and other speech articulators. This model is called Maximum Likelihood Continuity Mapping (Malcom). Many speech researchers believe that by using constraints imposed by articulator motions, we can improve or replace the current hidden Markov model based speech recognition algorithms. Unfortunately, previous efforts to incorporate information about articulation into speech recognition algorithms have suffered because (1) slight inaccuracies in our knowledge or the formulation of our knowledge about articulation may decrease recognition performance, (2) small changes in the assumptions underlying models of speech production can lead to large changes in the speech derived from the models, and (3) collecting measurements of human articulator positions in sufficient quantity for training a speech recognition algorithm is still impractical. The most interesting (and in fact, unique) quality of Malcom is that, even though Malcom makes use of a mapping between acoustics and articulation, Malcom can be trained to recognize speech using only acoustic data. By learning the mapping between acoustics and articulation using only acoustic data, Malcom avoids the difficulties involved in collecting articulator position measurements and does not require an articulatory synthesizer model to estimate the mapping between vocal tract shapes and speech acoustics. Preliminary experiments that demonstrate that Malcom can learn the mapping between acoustics and articulation are discussed. Potential applications of Malcom aside from speech recognition are also discussed. Finally, specific deliverables resulting from the proposed research are described.

  11. Cleft Audit Protocol for Speech (CAPS-A): A Comprehensive Training Package for Speech Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sell, D.; John, A.; Harding-Bell, A.; Sweeney, T.; Hegarty, F.; Freeman, J.

    2009-01-01

    Background: The previous literature has largely focused on speech analysis systems and ignored process issues, such as the nature of adequate speech samples, data acquisition, recording and playback. Although there has been recognition of the need for training on tools used in speech analysis associated with cleft palate, little attention has been…

  12. Perceived liveliness and speech comprehensibility in aphasia : the effects of direct speech in auditory narratives

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Groenewold, Rimke; Bastiaanse, Roelien; Nickels, Lyndsey; Huiskes, Mike

    2014-01-01

    Background: Previous studies have shown that in semi-spontaneous speech, individuals with Broca's and anomic aphasia produce relatively many direct speech constructions. It has been claimed that in 'healthy' communication direct speech constructions contribute to the liveliness, and indirectly to

  13. Preschool speech intelligibility and vocabulary skills predict long-term speech and language outcomes following cochlear implantation in early childhood.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castellanos, Irina; Kronenberger, William G; Beer, Jessica; Henning, Shirley C; Colson, Bethany G; Pisoni, David B

    2014-07-01

    Speech and language measures during grade school predict adolescent speech-language outcomes in children who receive cochlear implants (CIs), but no research has examined whether speech and language functioning at even younger ages is predictive of long-term outcomes in this population. The purpose of this study was to examine whether early preschool measures of speech and language performance predict speech-language functioning in long-term users of CIs. Early measures of speech intelligibility and receptive vocabulary (obtained during preschool ages of 3-6 years) in a sample of 35 prelingually deaf, early-implanted children predicted speech perception, language, and verbal working memory skills up to 18 years later. Age of onset of deafness and age at implantation added additional variance to preschool speech intelligibility in predicting some long-term outcome scores, but the relationship between preschool speech-language skills and later speech-language outcomes was not significantly attenuated by the addition of these hearing history variables. These findings suggest that speech and language development during the preschool years is predictive of long-term speech and language functioning in early-implanted, prelingually deaf children. As a result, measures of speech-language functioning at preschool ages can be used to identify and adjust interventions for very young CI users who may be at long-term risk for suboptimal speech and language outcomes.

  14. Harmed patients gaining voice: challenging dominant perspectives in the construction of medical harm and patient safety reforms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ocloo, Josephine Enyonam

    2010-08-01

    Patient safety is a central issue in healthcare. In the United Kingdom, where there is more accurate information on National Health Service (NHS) hospitals than on primary care or the private sector, the evidence on adverse incidents shows that avoidable medical harm is a major concern. This paper looks at the occurrence of medical harm and argues that in the construction of patient safety reforms, it is important to be aware of alternative narratives about issues of power and accountability from harmed patients and self-help groups, that challenge dominant perspectives on the issues. The paper draws upon evidence from two sources. First, the paper draws on experiences of self-help groups set up as a result of medical harm and part of a campaigning network, where evidence was gathered from 14 groups over more than 2 years. In addition, data were obtained from 21 individuals affected by harm that attended a residential workshop called the Break Through Programme; 18 questionnaires were completed from participants and a written narrative account of their experiences and observational data were gathered from a range of workshop sessions. Looking at the issues from harmed patients' perspectives, the research illustrates that a model of medical harm focussing predominantly upon the clinical markers and individual agency associated with a medical model operates to obscure a range of social processes. These social processes, connected to the power and dominance of the medical profession and the activities of a wider state, are seen to be a major part of the construction of harm that impacts upon patients, which is further compounded by its concealment. Understanding the experiences of harmed patients is therefore seen as an important way of generating knowledge about the medical and social processes involved in harm, that can lead to a broader framework for addressing patient safety. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Harm reduction-the cannabis paradox

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Melamede Robert

    2005-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract This article examines harm reduction from a novel perspective. Its central thesis is that harm reduction is not only a social concept, but also a biological one. More specifically, evolution does not make moral distinctions in the selection process, but utilizes a cannabis-based approach to harm reduction in order to promote survival of the fittest. Evidence will be provided from peer-reviewed scientific literature that supports the hypothesis that humans, and all animals, make and use internally produced cannabis-like products (endocannabinoids as part of the evolutionary harm reduction program. More specifically, endocannabinoids homeostatically regulate all body systems (cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, excretory, immune, nervous, musculo-skeletal, reproductive. Therefore, the health of each individual is dependant on this system working appropriately.

  16. Speech Clarity Index (Ψ): A Distance-Based Speech Quality Indicator and Recognition Rate Prediction for Dysarthric Speakers with Cerebral Palsy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kayasith, Prakasith; Theeramunkong, Thanaruk

    It is a tedious and subjective task to measure severity of a dysarthria by manually evaluating his/her speech using available standard assessment methods based on human perception. This paper presents an automated approach to assess speech quality of a dysarthric speaker with cerebral palsy. With the consideration of two complementary factors, speech consistency and speech distinction, a speech quality indicator called speech clarity index (Ψ) is proposed as a measure of the speaker's ability to produce consistent speech signal for a certain word and distinguished speech signal for different words. As an application, it can be used to assess speech quality and forecast speech recognition rate of speech made by an individual dysarthric speaker before actual exhaustive implementation of an automatic speech recognition system for the speaker. The effectiveness of Ψ as a speech recognition rate predictor is evaluated by rank-order inconsistency, correlation coefficient, and root-mean-square of difference. The evaluations had been done by comparing its predicted recognition rates with ones predicted by the standard methods called the articulatory and intelligibility tests based on the two recognition systems (HMM and ANN). The results show that Ψ is a promising indicator for predicting recognition rate of dysarthric speech. All experiments had been done on speech corpus composed of speech data from eight normal speakers and eight dysarthric speakers.

  17. Automated Speech Rate Measurement in Dysarthria

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martens, Heidi; Dekens, Tomas; Van Nuffelen, Gwen; Latacz, Lukas; Verhelst, Werner; De Bodt, Marc

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: In this study, a new algorithm for automated determination of speech rate (SR) in dysarthric speech is evaluated. We investigated how reliably the algorithm calculates the SR of dysarthric speech samples when compared with calculation performed by speech-language pathologists. Method: The new algorithm was trained and tested using Dutch…

  18. Simultaneous natural speech and AAC interventions for children with childhood apraxia of speech: lessons from a speech-language pathologist focus group.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oommen, Elizabeth R; McCarthy, John W

    2015-03-01

    In childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), children exhibit varying levels of speech intelligibility depending on the nature of errors in articulation and prosody. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies are beneficial, and commonly adopted with children with CAS. This study focused on the decision-making process and strategies adopted by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) when simultaneously implementing interventions that focused on natural speech and AAC. Eight SLPs, with significant clinical experience in CAS and AAC interventions, participated in an online focus group. Thematic analysis revealed eight themes: key decision-making factors; treatment history and rationale; benefits; challenges; therapy strategies and activities; collaboration with team members; recommendations; and other comments. Results are discussed along with clinical implications and directions for future research.

  19. Speech Recognition on Mobile Devices

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tan, Zheng-Hua; Lindberg, Børge

    2010-01-01

    in the mobile context covering motivations, challenges, fundamental techniques and applications. Three ASR architectures are introduced: embedded speech recognition, distributed speech recognition and network speech recognition. Their pros and cons and implementation issues are discussed. Applications within......The enthusiasm of deploying automatic speech recognition (ASR) on mobile devices is driven both by remarkable advances in ASR technology and by the demand for efficient user interfaces on such devices as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). This chapter presents an overview of ASR...

  20. Foreign Body

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... SearchingPediatrics.com Pediatrics Common Questions, Quick Answers Foreign Body Donna D'Alessandro, M.D. Lindsay Huth, B. ... I call the doctor? What is a foreign body? A foreign body is when an object is ...

  1. Speech Alarms Pilot Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sandor, Aniko; Moses, Haifa

    2016-01-01

    Speech alarms have been used extensively in aviation and included in International Building Codes (IBC) and National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) Life Safety Code. However, they have not been implemented on space vehicles. Previous studies conducted at NASA JSC showed that speech alarms lead to faster identification and higher accuracy. This research evaluated updated speech and tone alerts in a laboratory environment and in the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) in a realistic setup.

  2. Freedom of Speech Newsletter, September, 1975.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allen, Winfred G., Jr., Ed.

    The Freedom of Speech Newsletter is the communication medium for the Freedom of Speech Interest Group of the Western Speech Communication Association. The newsletter contains such features as a statement of concern by the National Ad Hoc Committee Against Censorship; Reticence and Free Speech, an article by James F. Vickrey discussing the subtle…

  3. Automatic speech recognition used for evaluation of text-to-speech systems

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Vích, Robert; Nouza, J.; Vondra, Martin

    -, č. 5042 (2008), s. 136-148 ISSN 0302-9743 R&D Projects: GA AV ČR 1ET301710509; GA AV ČR 1QS108040569 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z20670512 Keywords : speech recognition * speech processing Subject RIV: JA - Electronics ; Optoelectronics, Electrical Engineering

  4. The Distinctive Role of Foreign Debt in Foreign Exchange Risk Management

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Aabo, Tom; Hansen, Marianna Andryeyeva; Muradoglu, Yaz Gulnur

    Finance theory suggests that a positive (long) foreign exchange exposure can be offset by debt denominated in foreign currency (“foreign debt”) and empirical studies confirm that foreign debt is used for hedging purposes. We use detailed exposure information on a sample of medium-sized nonfinancial...... firms and show that in its practical hedging application, foreign debt is used distinctively different from derivatives (e.g. forward contracts). While the use of derivatives is associated with flow measures (foreign sales revenue), the use of foreign debt is solely associated with stock measures...... level which makes it possible to go deeper than previous studies in detecting the drivers behind foreign debt usage. The empirical results are important in order to understand the factors driving the use of foreign debt in non-financial firms....

  5. SynFace—Speech-Driven Facial Animation for Virtual Speech-Reading Support

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giampiero Salvi

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper describes SynFace, a supportive technology that aims at enhancing audio-based spoken communication in adverse acoustic conditions by providing the missing visual information in the form of an animated talking head. Firstly, we describe the system architecture, consisting of a 3D animated face model controlled from the speech input by a specifically optimised phonetic recogniser. Secondly, we report on speech intelligibility experiments with focus on multilinguality and robustness to audio quality. The system, already available for Swedish, English, and Flemish, was optimised for German and for Swedish wide-band speech quality available in TV, radio, and Internet communication. Lastly, the paper covers experiments with nonverbal motions driven from the speech signal. It is shown that turn-taking gestures can be used to affect the flow of human-human dialogues. We have focused specifically on two categories of cues that may be extracted from the acoustic signal: prominence/emphasis and interactional cues (turn-taking/back-channelling.

  6. The Effect of English Verbal Songs on Connected Speech Aspects of Adult English Learners’ Speech Production

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Farshid Tayari Ashtiani

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available The present study was an attempt to investigate the impact of English verbal songs on connected speech aspects of adult English learners’ speech production. 40 participants were selected based on the results of their performance in a piloted and validated version of NELSON test given to 60 intermediate English learners in a language institute in Tehran. Then they were equally distributed in two control and experimental groups and received a validated pretest of reading aloud and speaking in English. Afterward, the treatment was performed in 18 sessions by singing preselected songs culled based on some criteria such as popularity, familiarity, amount, and speed of speech delivery, etc. In the end, the posttests of reading aloud and speaking in English were administered. The results revealed that the treatment had statistically positive effects on the connected speech aspects of English learners’ speech production at statistical .05 level of significance. Meanwhile, the results represented that there was not any significant difference between the experimental group’s mean scores on the posttests of reading aloud and speaking. It was thus concluded that providing the EFL learners with English verbal songs could positively affect connected speech aspects of both modes of speech production, reading aloud and speaking. The Findings of this study have pedagogical implications for language teachers to be more aware and knowledgeable of the benefits of verbal songs to promote speech production of language learners in terms of naturalness and fluency. Keywords: English Verbal Songs, Connected Speech, Speech Production, Reading Aloud, Speaking

  7. An analysis of the masking of speech by competing speech using self-report data (L)

    OpenAIRE

    Agus, Trevor R.; Akeroyd, Michael A.; Noble, William; Bhullar, Navjot

    2009-01-01

    Many of the items in the “Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing” scale questionnaire [S. Gatehouse and W. Noble, Int. J. Audiol.43, 85–99 (2004)] are concerned with speech understanding in a variety of backgrounds, both speech and nonspeech. To study if this self-report data reflected informational masking, previously collected data on 414 people were analyzed. The lowest scores (greatest difficulties) were found for the two items in which there were two speech targets, with successively ...

  8. Illustrated Speech Anatomy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shearer, William M.

    Written for students in the fields of speech correction and audiology, the text deals with the following: structures involved in respiration; the skeleton and the processes of inhalation and exhalation; phonation and pitch, the larynx, and esophageal speech; muscles involved in articulation; muscles involved in resonance; and the anatomy of the…

  9. Speech Entrainment Compensates for Broca's Area Damage

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fridriksson, Julius; Basilakos, Alexandra; Hickok, Gregory; Bonilha, Leonardo; Rorden, Chris

    2015-01-01

    Speech entrainment (SE), the online mimicking of an audiovisual speech model, has been shown to increase speech fluency in patients with Broca's aphasia. However, not all individuals with aphasia benefit from SE. The purpose of this study was to identify patterns of cortical damage that predict a positive response SE's fluency-inducing effects. Forty-four chronic patients with left hemisphere stroke (15 female) were included in this study. Participants completed two tasks: 1) spontaneous speech production, and 2) audiovisual SE. Number of different words per minute was calculated as a speech output measure for each task, with the difference between SE and spontaneous speech conditions yielding a measure of fluency improvement. Voxel-wise lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) was used to relate the number of different words per minute for spontaneous speech, SE, and SE-related improvement to patterns of brain damage in order to predict lesion locations associated with the fluency-inducing response to speech entrainment. Individuals with Broca's aphasia demonstrated a significant increase in different words per minute during speech entrainment versus spontaneous speech. A similar pattern of improvement was not seen in patients with other types of aphasia. VLSM analysis revealed damage to the inferior frontal gyrus predicted this response. Results suggest that SE exerts its fluency-inducing effects by providing a surrogate target for speech production via internal monitoring processes. Clinically, these results add further support for the use of speech entrainment to improve speech production and may help select patients for speech entrainment treatment. PMID:25989443

  10. Foreign Language Learning using E-Communication Technologies in the Educational Sector

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andreea-Maria Tirziu

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available E-communication places new demands on language, leading to interesting variations in written language use. E-mail, chats, online discussions and SMS messages use a language marked by traits of both informal speech and formal writing, a host of text-based icons and acronyms for handling social interaction and modifications in spelling norms. Objectives: The purpose of this article is to provide a framework on individuals’ possibilities to learn a foreign language using e-communication technologies. Approach: It shows the specialty literature that focuses on e-learning, with priority to e-communication. Results: Proper use of new technologies allows a more systematic integration of language, content and culture, and gives individuals unprecedented opportunities for autonomous learning. E-communication not only helps teachers and students to exceed linguistic, geographical and time barriers, but also to build bridges between native and foreign language programs. Implications: This research work is important for academics and students who use online technologies to teach or learn another language. Value: In this paper, we have identified that the use of new technologies consents learners to engage in forms of online communication, thus research becoming vital for success in their academic and professional pursuits.

  11. Patterns of poststroke brain damage that predict speech production errors in apraxia of speech and aphasia dissociate.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Basilakos, Alexandra; Rorden, Chris; Bonilha, Leonardo; Moser, Dana; Fridriksson, Julius

    2015-06-01

    Acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) is a motor speech disorder caused by brain damage. AOS often co-occurs with aphasia, a language disorder in which patients may also demonstrate speech production errors. The overlap of speech production deficits in both disorders has raised questions on whether AOS emerges from a unique pattern of brain damage or as a subelement of the aphasic syndrome. The purpose of this study was to determine whether speech production errors in AOS and aphasia are associated with distinctive patterns of brain injury. Forty-three patients with history of a single left-hemisphere stroke underwent comprehensive speech and language testing. The AOS Rating Scale was used to rate speech errors specific to AOS versus speech errors that can also be associated with both AOS and aphasia. Localized brain damage was identified using structural magnetic resonance imaging, and voxel-based lesion-impairment mapping was used to evaluate the relationship between speech errors specific to AOS, those that can occur in AOS or aphasia, and brain damage. The pattern of brain damage associated with AOS was most strongly associated with damage to cortical motor regions, with additional involvement of somatosensory areas. Speech production deficits that could be attributed to AOS or aphasia were associated with damage to the temporal lobe and the inferior precentral frontal regions. AOS likely occurs in conjunction with aphasia because of the proximity of the brain areas supporting speech and language, but the neurobiological substrate for each disorder differs. © 2015 American Heart Association, Inc.

  12. A NOVEL APPROACH TO STUTTERED SPEECH CORRECTION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alim Sabur Ajibola

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Stuttered speech is a dysfluency rich speech, more prevalent in males than females. It has been associated with insufficient air pressure or poor articulation, even though the root causes are more complex. The primary features include prolonged speech and repetitive speech, while some of its secondary features include, anxiety, fear, and shame. This study used LPC analysis and synthesis algorithms to reconstruct the stuttered speech. The results were evaluated using cepstral distance, Itakura-Saito distance, mean square error, and likelihood ratio. These measures implied perfect speech reconstruction quality. ASR was used for further testing, and the results showed that all the reconstructed speech samples were perfectly recognized while only three samples of the original speech were perfectly recognized.

  13. Prisoner Fasting as Symbolic Speech: The Ultimate Speech-Action Test.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sneed, Don; Stonecipher, Harry W.

    The ultimate test of the speech-action dichotomy, as it relates to symbolic speech to be considered by the courts, may be the fasting of prison inmates who use hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their confinement or to make political statements. While hunger strikes have been utilized by prisoners for years as a means of protest, it was…

  14. Childhood apraxia of speech and multiple phonological disorders in Cairo-Egyptian Arabic speaking children: language, speech, and oro-motor differences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aziz, Azza Adel; Shohdi, Sahar; Osman, Dalia Mostafa; Habib, Emad Iskander

    2010-06-01

    Childhood apraxia of speech is a neurological childhood speech-sound disorder in which the precision and consistency of movements underlying speech are impaired in the absence of neuromuscular deficits. Children with childhood apraxia of speech and those with multiple phonological disorder share some common phonological errors that can be misleading in diagnosis. This study posed a question about a possible significant difference in language, speech and non-speech oral performances between children with childhood apraxia of speech, multiple phonological disorder and normal children that can be used for a differential diagnostic purpose. 30 pre-school children between the ages of 4 and 6 years served as participants. Each of these children represented one of 3 possible subject-groups: Group 1: multiple phonological disorder; Group 2: suspected cases of childhood apraxia of speech; Group 3: control group with no communication disorder. Assessment procedures included: parent interviews; testing of non-speech oral motor skills and testing of speech skills. Data showed that children with suspected childhood apraxia of speech showed significantly lower language score only in their expressive abilities. Non-speech tasks did not identify significant differences between childhood apraxia of speech and multiple phonological disorder groups except for those which required two sequential motor performances. In speech tasks, both consonant and vowel accuracy were significantly lower and inconsistent in childhood apraxia of speech group than in the multiple phonological disorder group. Syllable number, shape and sequence accuracy differed significantly in the childhood apraxia of speech group than the other two groups. In addition, children with childhood apraxia of speech showed greater difficulty in processing prosodic features indicating a clear need to address these variables for differential diagnosis and treatment of children with childhood apraxia of speech. Copyright (c

  15. Individual differneces in degraded speech perception

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carbonell, Kathy M.

    One of the lasting concerns in audiology is the unexplained individual differences in speech perception performance even for individuals with similar audiograms. One proposal is that there are cognitive/perceptual individual differences underlying this vulnerability and that these differences are present in normal hearing (NH) individuals but do not reveal themselves in studies that use clear speech produced in quiet (because of a ceiling effect). However, previous studies have failed to uncover cognitive/perceptual variables that explain much of the variance in NH performance on more challenging degraded speech tasks. This lack of strong correlations may be due to either examining the wrong measures (e.g., working memory capacity) or to there being no reliable differences in degraded speech performance in NH listeners (i.e., variability in performance is due to measurement noise). The proposed project has 3 aims; the first, is to establish whether there are reliable individual differences in degraded speech performance for NH listeners that are sustained both across degradation types (speech in noise, compressed speech, noise-vocoded speech) and across multiple testing sessions. The second aim is to establish whether there are reliable differences in NH listeners' ability to adapt their phonetic categories based on short-term statistics both across tasks and across sessions; and finally, to determine whether performance on degraded speech perception tasks are correlated with performance on phonetic adaptability tasks, thus establishing a possible explanatory variable for individual differences in speech perception for NH and hearing impaired listeners.

  16. Collective speech acts

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meijers, A.W.M.; Tsohatzidis, S.L.

    2007-01-01

    From its early development in the 1960s, speech act theory always had an individualistic orientation. It focused exclusively on speech acts performed by individual agents. Paradigmatic examples are ‘I promise that p’, ‘I order that p’, and ‘I declare that p’. There is a single speaker and a single

  17. Is Personality Associated with Secondhand Harm from Drinking?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis MacNevin, Parnell; Thompson, Kara; Teehan, Michael; Stuart, Heather; Stewart, Sherry

    2017-09-01

    Prior research suggests more than 70% of undergraduates have experienced harm from other students' drinking. This study built on the literature by, first, investigating whether secondhand harm cluster into latent factors that reflect distinct but related types of harm. Second, given the paucity of research examining factors that increase students' vulnerability to secondhand harm, we examined dimensions from Castellanos-Ryan and Conrod's 4-factor personality model for alcohol disorders (impulsivity [IMP], sensation seeking [SS], hopelessness [HOP], anxiety sensitivity [AS]) as predictors of secondhand harm exposure. We also investigated the possible mediating role of students' own problematic alcohol use in explaining personality-secondhand harm relationships. An online survey was administered to 1,537 first-year Canadian undergraduates (68% women). Problematic alcohol use was measured by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, and personality was measured by the Substance Use Risk Profile Scale. Eleven secondhand harm items were included. The secondhand harm clustered into 3 distinct but related factors: "strains" (e.g., interruption of sleep or study), "threats" (e.g., harassment or assault), and "interpersonal harm" (e.g., arguments with peers). Sixty-eight percent of respondents reported strains, 44% threats, and 64% interpersonal harm, and 35% reported experiencing all 3 types of harm, in the last term. All 4 personality dimensions were independently associated with greater secondhand harm exposure. HOP was directly associated with threats and interpersonal harm, and AS was directly associated with all 3 types of harm. SS and IMP were both indirectly associated with all 3 types of harm through students' own problematic alcohol use. In addition, IMP was directly related to threats. The prevalence of secondhand harm from alcohol is high among undergraduates. Findings suggest that distinct personality risks may predispose students to experience secondhand

  18. Harm mediates the disgust-immorality link.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schein, Chelsea; Ritter, Ryan S; Gray, Kurt

    2016-09-01

    Many acts are disgusting, but only some of these acts are immoral. Dyadic morality predicts that disgusting acts should be judged as immoral to the extent that they seem harmful. Consistent with this prediction, 3 studies reveal that perceived harm mediates the link between feelings of disgust and moral condemnation-even for ostensibly harmless "purity" violations. In many cases, accounting for perceived harm completely eliminates the link between disgust and moral condemnation. Analyses also reveal the predictive power of anger and typicality/weirdness in moral judgments of disgusting acts. The mediation of disgust by harm holds across diverse acts including gay marriage, sex acts, and religious blasphemy. Revealing the endogenous presence and moral relevance of harm within disgusting-but-ostensibly harmless acts argues against modular accounts of moral cognition such as moral foundations theory. Instead, these data support pluralistic conceptions of harm and constructionist accounts of morality and emotion. Implications for moral cognition and the concept of "purity" are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  19. Commencement Speech as a Hybrid Polydiscursive Practice

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Светлана Викторовна Иванова

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Discourse and media communication researchers pay attention to the fact that popular discursive and communicative practices have a tendency to hybridization and convergence. Discourse which is understood as language in use is flexible. Consequently, it turns out that one and the same text can represent several types of discourses. A vivid example of this tendency is revealed in American commencement speech / commencement address / graduation speech. A commencement speech is a speech university graduates are addressed with which in compliance with the modern trend is delivered by outstanding media personalities (politicians, athletes, actors, etc.. The objective of this study is to define the specificity of the realization of polydiscursive practices within commencement speech. The research involves discursive, contextual, stylistic and definitive analyses. Methodologically the study is based on the discourse analysis theory, in particular the notion of a discursive practice as a verbalized social practice makes up the conceptual basis of the research. This research draws upon a hundred commencement speeches delivered by prominent representatives of American society since 1980s till now. In brief, commencement speech belongs to institutional discourse public speech embodies. Commencement speech institutional parameters are well represented in speeches delivered by people in power like American and university presidents. Nevertheless, as the results of the research indicate commencement speech institutional character is not its only feature. Conceptual information analysis enables to refer commencement speech to didactic discourse as it is aimed at teaching university graduates how to deal with challenges life is rich in. Discursive practices of personal discourse are also actively integrated into the commencement speech discourse. More than that, existential discursive practices also find their way into the discourse under study. Commencement

  20. Harm reduction as a strategy for supporting people who self-harm on mental health wards: the views and experiences of practitioners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    James, Karen; Samuels, Isaac; Moran, Paul; Stewart, Duncan

    2017-05-01

    Harm reduction has had positive outcomes for people using sexual health and substance misuse services. Clinical guidance recommends these approaches may be appropriately adopted by mental health practitioners when managing some people who self-harm. There has, however, been very little research in this area. We explored practitioners' views of harm reduction as a strategy for supporting people who self-harm. The Self Harm Antipathy Scale (SHAS) was administered to a random sample of 395 mental health practitioners working on 31 wards in England, semi-structured interviews were then conducted with 18 survey respondents. Practitioners who had implemented the approach reported positive outcomes including a reduction in incidence and severity of self-harm and a perceived increase in empowerment of service users. Practitioners with no experience of using harm reduction were concerned that self-harm would increase in severity, and were unsure how to assess and manage risk in people under a harm reduction care plan. Some fundamentally disagreed with the principle of harm reduction for self-harm because it challenged their core beliefs about the morality of self-harm, or the ethical and potential legal ramifications of allowing individuals to harm themselves. This study was conducted solely with practitioners working on inpatient units. The majority of staff interviewed had no experience of harm reduction and so their concerns may not reflect challenges encountered by practitioners in clinical practice. Harm reduction is being used to support people who self-harm within inpatient psychiatry and some practitioners report potential benefits of this approach. However, this raises particularly complex practical, ethical and legal issues and further research is needed to assess the safety, acceptability and efficacy of the approach. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. The effectiveness of Speech-Music Therapy for Aphasia (SMTA) in five speakers with Apraxia of Speech and aphasia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hurkmans, Joost; Jonkers, Roel; de Bruijn, Madeleen; Boonstra, Anne M.; Hartman, Paul P.; Arendzen, Hans; Reinders - Messelink, Heelen

    2015-01-01

    Background: Several studies using musical elements in the treatment of neurological language and speech disorders have reported improvement of speech production. One such programme, Speech-Music Therapy for Aphasia (SMTA), integrates speech therapy and music therapy (MT) to treat the individual with

  2. Law and psychiatry: regulating psychotherapy or restricting freedom of speech? California's ban on sexual orientation change efforts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Appelbaum, Paul S

    2014-01-01

    California's new law banning sexual orientation change efforts by licensed therapists for patients under 18 immediately provoked court challenges. Therapists, parents, and patients argued that the statute infringed constitutional rights to freedom of speech and parental rights to select treatments for their children. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected all of these claims in a unanimous decision upholding the law. However, the decision evokes concerns that other forms of psychotherapy could be subject to similar regulation. Tort remedies may provide less intrusive means for discouraging use of ineffective and potentially harmful therapies.

  3. Current trends in multilingual speech processing

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    2016-08-26

    ; speech-to-speech translation; language identification. ... interest owing to two strong driving forces. Firstly, technical advances in speech recognition and synthesis are posing new challenges and opportunities to researchers.

  4. Do long-term tongue piercings affect speech quality?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heinen, Esther; Birkholz, Peter; Willmes, Klaus; Neuschaefer-Rube, Christiane

    2017-10-01

    To explore possible effects of tongue piercing on perceived speech quality. Using a quasi-experimental design, we analyzed the effect of tongue piercing on speech in a perception experiment. Samples of spontaneous speech and read speech were recorded from 20 long-term pierced and 20 non-pierced individuals (10 males, 10 females each). The individuals having a tongue piercing were recorded with attached and removed piercing. The audio samples were blindly rated by 26 female and 20 male laypersons and by 5 female speech-language pathologists with regard to perceived speech quality along 5 dimensions: speech clarity, speech rate, prosody, rhythm and fluency. We found no statistically significant differences for any of the speech quality dimensions between the pierced and non-pierced individuals, neither for the read nor for the spontaneous speech. In addition, neither length nor position of piercing had a significant effect on speech quality. The removal of tongue piercings had no effects on speech performance either. Rating differences between laypersons and speech-language pathologists were not dependent on the presence of a tongue piercing. People are able to perfectly adapt their articulation to long-term tongue piercings such that their speech quality is not perceptually affected.

  5. The Behavioral Bias of Foreign Debt Usage in Foreign Exchange Risk Management

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Aabo, Tom

    We investigate the behavioral bias in the use of debt denominated in foreign currency (foreign debt) in managing foreign exchange risks. From a strictly financial (rational) point of view foreign debt and derivates are close substitutes. Whether e.g. a European firm sells forward US dollars against...... foreign exchange risk management in medium-sized, non-financial firms in Denmark and find a behavioral bias in the use of foreign debt. Among the firms that are internationally involved (operating revenues, costs and/or assets in foreign currency), on average a quarter of the financial debt is denominated...... in foreign currency. The use / non-use of foreign debt is positively related to a number of internationality measures but most significantly to the existence of subsidiaries abroad whereas the degree of usage is particularly related to the magnitude of foreign operating assets. The use of foreign debt...

  6. Patterns of Post-Stroke Brain Damage that Predict Speech Production Errors in Apraxia of Speech and Aphasia Dissociate

    Science.gov (United States)

    Basilakos, Alexandra; Rorden, Chris; Bonilha, Leonardo; Moser, Dana; Fridriksson, Julius

    2015-01-01

    Background and Purpose Acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) is a motor speech disorder caused by brain damage. AOS often co-occurs with aphasia, a language disorder in which patients may also demonstrate speech production errors. The overlap of speech production deficits in both disorders has raised questions regarding if AOS emerges from a unique pattern of brain damage or as a sub-element of the aphasic syndrome. The purpose of this study was to determine whether speech production errors in AOS and aphasia are associated with distinctive patterns of brain injury. Methods Forty-three patients with history of a single left-hemisphere stroke underwent comprehensive speech and language testing. The Apraxia of Speech Rating Scale was used to rate speech errors specific to AOS versus speech errors that can also be associated with AOS and/or aphasia. Localized brain damage was identified using structural MRI, and voxel-based lesion-impairment mapping was used to evaluate the relationship between speech errors specific to AOS, those that can occur in AOS and/or aphasia, and brain damage. Results The pattern of brain damage associated with AOS was most strongly associated with damage to cortical motor regions, with additional involvement of somatosensory areas. Speech production deficits that could be attributed to AOS and/or aphasia were associated with damage to the temporal lobe and the inferior pre-central frontal regions. Conclusion AOS likely occurs in conjunction with aphasia due to the proximity of the brain areas supporting speech and language, but the neurobiological substrate for each disorder differs. PMID:25908457

  7. Foreign Body Retrieval

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... percent of foreign body ingestions occur among children. Most foreign bodies pass through the gastrointestinal tract without ... fainting and shock. Foreign bodies in the airway: Most foreign bodies in the airway are usually expelled ...

  8. Progressive apraxia of speech as a window into the study of speech planning processes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laganaro, Marina; Croisier, Michèle; Bagou, Odile; Assal, Frédéric

    2012-09-01

    We present a 3-year follow-up study of a patient with progressive apraxia of speech (PAoS), aimed at investigating whether the theoretical organization of phonetic encoding is reflected in the progressive disruption of speech. As decreased speech rate was the most striking pattern of disruption during the first 2 years, durational analyses were carried out longitudinally on syllables excised from spontaneous, repetition and reading speech samples. The crucial result of the present study is the demonstration of an effect of syllable frequency on duration: the progressive disruption of articulation rate did not affect all syllables in the same way, but followed a gradient that was function of the frequency of use of syllable-sized motor programs. The combination of data from this case of PAoS with previous psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic data, points to a frequency organization of syllable-sized speech-motor plans. In this study we also illustrate how studying PAoS can be exploited in theoretical and clinical investigations of phonetic encoding as it represents a unique opportunity to investigate speech while it progressively disrupts. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

  9. Musicians do not benefit from differences in fundamental frequency when listening to speech in competing speech backgrounds

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Madsen, Sara Miay Kim; Whiteford, Kelly L.; Oxenham, Andrew J.

    2017-01-01

    Recent studies disagree on whether musicians have an advantage over non-musicians in understanding speech in noise. However, it has been suggested that musicians may be able to use diferences in fundamental frequency (F0) to better understand target speech in the presence of interfering talkers....... Here we studied a relatively large (N=60) cohort of young adults, equally divided between nonmusicians and highly trained musicians, to test whether the musicians were better able to understand speech either in noise or in a two-talker competing speech masker. The target speech and competing speech...... were presented with either their natural F0 contours or on a monotone F0, and the F0 diference between the target and masker was systematically varied. As expected, speech intelligibility improved with increasing F0 diference between the target and the two-talker masker for both natural and monotone...

  10. Protection of atmosphere from harmful emissions of stationary fuelburn installations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lebedeva Еvgeniya А.

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available The article analyzes domestic and foreign researches in the field of combustion gas cleaning from harmful matters. The drawbacks of the existing methods of cleaning emissions of small-capacity boilers are revealed. The results of the researches conducted by the authors are presented. Complex schemes of cleaning emissions of the industrial boilers of the DKVR series are considered. The results of the tests of afterburning devices installed in the industrial boilers are presented. The simplest design of an afterburning device by the example of an industrial boiler of the DKVR series is considered. It is shown that the application of the afterburning devices prevents emissions of the incomplete burning products (CO, carbon black, benzpyrene and reduces the nitric oxide content by (50-80%, depending on the scheme of cleaning. The usage of the afterburning devices improves boiler performance owing to the increase of the radiant component in a furnace chamber, reduction of heat losses, increase of efficiency.

  11. Novel Techniques for Dialectal Arabic Speech Recognition

    CERN Document Server

    Elmahdy, Mohamed; Minker, Wolfgang

    2012-01-01

    Novel Techniques for Dialectal Arabic Speech describes approaches to improve automatic speech recognition for dialectal Arabic. Since speech resources for dialectal Arabic speech recognition are very sparse, the authors describe how existing Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) speech data can be applied to dialectal Arabic speech recognition, while assuming that MSA is always a second language for all Arabic speakers. In this book, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) has been chosen as a typical Arabic dialect. ECA is the first ranked Arabic dialect in terms of number of speakers, and a high quality ECA speech corpus with accurate phonetic transcription has been collected. MSA acoustic models were trained using news broadcast speech. In order to cross-lingually use MSA in dialectal Arabic speech recognition, the authors have normalized the phoneme sets for MSA and ECA. After this normalization, they have applied state-of-the-art acoustic model adaptation techniques like Maximum Likelihood Linear Regression (MLLR) and M...

  12. Speech and Communication Disorders

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... to being completely unable to speak or understand speech. Causes include Hearing disorders and deafness Voice problems, ... or those caused by cleft lip or palate Speech problems like stuttering Developmental disabilities Learning disorders Autism ...

  13. Speech of people with autism: Echolalia and echolalic speech

    OpenAIRE

    Błeszyński, Jacek Jarosław

    2013-01-01

    Speech of people with autism is recognised as one of the basic diagnostic, therapeutic and theoretical problems. One of the most common symptoms of autism in children is echolalia, described here as being of different types and severity. This paper presents the results of studies into different levels of echolalia, both in normally developing children and in children diagnosed with autism, discusses the differences between simple echolalia and echolalic speech - which can be considered to b...

  14. A Diagnostic Marker to Discriminate Childhood Apraxia of Speech from Speech Delay: Introduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shriberg, Lawrence D.; Strand, Edythe A.; Fourakis, Marios; Jakielski, Kathy J.; Hall, Sheryl D.; Karlsson, Heather B.; Mabie, Heather L.; McSweeny, Jane L.; Tilkens, Christie M.; Wilson, David L.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: The goal of this article is to introduce the pause marker (PM), a single-sign diagnostic marker proposed to discriminate early or persistent childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) from speech delay.

  15. Dose enhancement in the neighborhood of foreign bodies of the skin due to electron irradiation. A Monte-Carlo study using MCNP

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Heide, Bernd [Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen (DE). Inst. of Radiation Research (ISF)

    2011-07-01

    Foreign bodies penetrate into the skin in the region of the hand very frequently. If they are amicrobic, they can get stuck in the skin and do no harm to the body in normal case. However, when handling with a radioactive material, like an Sr-90/Y-90 syringe for example, a stuck foreign body in a finger can lead to an enhanced absorbed dose in the neighbourhood of a few hundredths of millimetre of a foreign body, which just is in magnitude of a body cell. In the following, we shall investigate the dose enhancement effect of graphite, lead, and gold when embedded in soft tissue and irradiated with electrons. This case study focusses on the region close to the piece of metal (foreign body) without consideration for the depth in which the foreign body is located. It holds some other idealised assumptions (concerning vacuum, shape and size of foreign bodies, tissue composition, and direction of the radiation field) but still is near to real situations. Among others, this case study served to estimate the dose enhancement in the neighbourhood of a pike of lead located at the right forefinger of a member of our Institute of Radiation Research after an Sr-90/Y-90 irradiation. (orig.)

  16. Self-harm and ethnicity: A systematic review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Al-Sharifi, Ali; Krynicki, Carl R; Upthegrove, Rachel

    2015-09-01

    This review will focus on the rates, clinical characteristics, risk factors and methods of self-harm and suicide in different ethnic groups in the United Kingdom, providing an update synthesis of recent literature. Studies that met the inclusion criteria between 2003 and 2013 were reviewed using the following databases: MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE and CINAHL. The methodological quality of each study was then assessed using a structured scoring system. A total of 2,362 articles were retrieved, 10 of which matched the inclusion criteria were reviewed. Significant differences were found in the rates of self-harm between ethnic groups with Asian males being least likely to self-harm and Black females being most likely to self-harm. Also, Black and South Asian people were less likely to repeat self-harm. Factors that may help protect or predispose individuals to self-harm or attempt suicide (such as religion, mental health and coping styles) also differ between ethnic groups. There are clear ethnic differences in self-harm and suicide, which may be affected by factors such as cultural pressures and prevalence of mental illness. An awareness of these differences is vital to help prevent further attempts of self-harm and suicide. Further research into differences between ethnic and cultural groups and self-harm continues to be important. © The Author(s) 2015.

  17. The Left, The Better: White-Matter Brain Integrity Predicts Foreign Language Imitation Ability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vaquero, Lucía; Rodríguez-Fornells, Antoni; Reiterer, Susanne M

    2017-08-01

    Speech imitation is crucial for language acquisition and second-language learning. Interestingly, large individual differences regarding the ability in imitating foreign-language sounds have been observed. The origin of this interindividual diversity remains unknown, although it might be partially explained by structural predispositions. Here we correlated white-matter structural properties of the arcuate fasciculus (AF) with the performance of 52 German-speakers in a Hindi sentence- and word-imitation task. First, a manual reconstruction was performed, permitting us to extract the mean values along the three branches of the AF. We found that a larger lateralization of the AF volume toward the left hemisphere predicted the performance of our participants in the imitation task. Second, an automatic reconstruction was carried out, allowing us to localize the specific region within the AF that exhibited the largest correlation with foreign language imitation. Results of this reconstruction also showed a left lateralization trend: greater fractional anisotropy values in the anterior half of the left AF correlated with the performance in the Hindi-imitation task. From the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that foreign language imitation aptitude is tested using a more ecological imitation task and correlated with DTI tractography, using both a manual and an automatic method. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  18. A speech production model including the nasal Cavity: A novel approach to articulatory analysis of speech signals

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olesen, Morten

    In order to obtain articulatory analysis of speech production the model is improved. the standard model, as used in LPC analysis, to a large extent only models the acoustic properties of speech signal as opposed to articulatory modelling of the speech production. In spite of this the LPC model...... is by far the most widely used model in speech technology....

  19. Successful and rapid response of speech bulb reduction program combined with speech therapy in velopharyngeal dysfunction: a case report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shin, Yu-Jeong; Ko, Seung-O

    2015-12-01

    Velopharyngeal dysfunction in cleft palate patients following the primary palate repair may result in nasal air emission, hypernasality, articulation disorder and poor intelligibility of speech. Among conservative treatment methods, speech aid prosthesis combined with speech therapy is widely used method. However because of its long time of treatment more than a year and low predictability, some clinicians prefer a surgical intervention. Thus, the purpose of this report was to increase an attention on the effectiveness of speech aid prosthesis by introducing a case that was successfully treated. In this clinical report, speech bulb reduction program with intensive speech therapy was applied for a patient with velopharyngeal dysfunction and it was rapidly treated by 5months which was unusually short period for speech aid therapy. Furthermore, advantages of pre-operative speech aid therapy were discussed.

  20. Speech Intelligibility Evaluation for Mobile Phones

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jørgensen, Søren; Cubick, Jens; Dau, Torsten

    2015-01-01

    In the development process of modern telecommunication systems, such as mobile phones, it is common practice to use computer models to objectively evaluate the transmission quality of the system, instead of time-consuming perceptual listening tests. Such models have typically focused on the quality...... of the transmitted speech, while little or no attention has been provided to speech intelligibility. The present study investigated to what extent three state-of-the art speech intelligibility models could predict the intelligibility of noisy speech transmitted through mobile phones. Sentences from the Danish...... Dantale II speech material were mixed with three different kinds of background noise, transmitted through three different mobile phones, and recorded at the receiver via a local network simulator. The speech intelligibility of the transmitted sentences was assessed by six normal-hearing listeners...

  1. Atypical speech versus non-speech detection and discrimination in 4- to 6- yr old children with autism spectrum disorder: An ERP study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alena Galilee

    Full Text Available Previous event-related potential (ERP research utilizing oddball stimulus paradigms suggests diminished processing of speech versus non-speech sounds in children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD. However, brain mechanisms underlying these speech processing abnormalities, and to what extent they are related to poor language abilities in this population remain unknown. In the current study, we utilized a novel paired repetition paradigm in order to investigate ERP responses associated with the detection and discrimination of speech and non-speech sounds in 4- to 6-year old children with ASD, compared with gender and verbal age matched controls. ERPs were recorded while children passively listened to pairs of stimuli that were either both speech sounds, both non-speech sounds, speech followed by non-speech, or non-speech followed by speech. Control participants exhibited N330 match/mismatch responses measured from temporal electrodes, reflecting speech versus non-speech detection, bilaterally, whereas children with ASD exhibited this effect only over temporal electrodes in the left hemisphere. Furthermore, while the control groups exhibited match/mismatch effects at approximately 600 ms (central N600, temporal P600 when a non-speech sound was followed by a speech sound, these effects were absent in the ASD group. These findings suggest that children with ASD fail to activate right hemisphere mechanisms, likely associated with social or emotional aspects of speech detection, when distinguishing non-speech from speech stimuli. Together, these results demonstrate the presence of atypical speech versus non-speech processing in children with ASD when compared with typically developing children matched on verbal age.

  2. Atypical speech versus non-speech detection and discrimination in 4- to 6- yr old children with autism spectrum disorder: An ERP study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Galilee, Alena; Stefanidou, Chrysi; McCleery, Joseph P

    2017-01-01

    Previous event-related potential (ERP) research utilizing oddball stimulus paradigms suggests diminished processing of speech versus non-speech sounds in children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, brain mechanisms underlying these speech processing abnormalities, and to what extent they are related to poor language abilities in this population remain unknown. In the current study, we utilized a novel paired repetition paradigm in order to investigate ERP responses associated with the detection and discrimination of speech and non-speech sounds in 4- to 6-year old children with ASD, compared with gender and verbal age matched controls. ERPs were recorded while children passively listened to pairs of stimuli that were either both speech sounds, both non-speech sounds, speech followed by non-speech, or non-speech followed by speech. Control participants exhibited N330 match/mismatch responses measured from temporal electrodes, reflecting speech versus non-speech detection, bilaterally, whereas children with ASD exhibited this effect only over temporal electrodes in the left hemisphere. Furthermore, while the control groups exhibited match/mismatch effects at approximately 600 ms (central N600, temporal P600) when a non-speech sound was followed by a speech sound, these effects were absent in the ASD group. These findings suggest that children with ASD fail to activate right hemisphere mechanisms, likely associated with social or emotional aspects of speech detection, when distinguishing non-speech from speech stimuli. Together, these results demonstrate the presence of atypical speech versus non-speech processing in children with ASD when compared with typically developing children matched on verbal age.

  3. Radiological evaluation of esophageal speech on total laryngectomee

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chung, Tae Sub; Suh, Jung Ho; Kim, Dong Ik; Kim, Gwi Eon; Hong, Won Phy; Lee, Won Sang

    1988-01-01

    Total laryngectomee requires some form of alaryngeal speech for communication. Generally, esophageal speech is regarded as the most available and comfortable technique for alaryngeal speech. But esophageal speech is difficult to train, so many patients are unable to attain esophageal speech for communication. To understand mechanism of esophageal of esophageal speech on total laryngectomee, evaluation of anatomical change of the pharyngoesophageal segment is very important. We used video fluoroscopy for evaluation of pharyngesophageal segment during esophageal speech. Eighteen total laryngectomees were evaluated with video fluoroscopy from Dec. 1986 to May 1987 at Y.U.M.C. Our results were as follows: 1. Peseudoglottis is the most important factor for esophageal speech, which is visualized in 7 cases among 8 cases of excellent esophageal speech group. 2. Two cases of longer A-P diameter at the pseudoglottis have the best quality of esophageal speech than others. 3. Two cases of mucosal vibration at the pharyngoesophageal segment can make excellent esophageal speech. 4. The cases of failed esophageal speech are poor aerophagia in 6 cases, abscence of pseudoglottis in 4 cases and poor air ejection in 3 cases. 5. Aerophagia synchronizes with diaphragmatic motion in 8 cases of excellent esophageal speech.

  4. Automatic Speech Recognition Systems for the Evaluation of Voice and Speech Disorders in Head and Neck Cancer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andreas Maier

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available In patients suffering from head and neck cancer, speech intelligibility is often restricted. For assessment and outcome measurements, automatic speech recognition systems have previously been shown to be appropriate for objective and quick evaluation of intelligibility. In this study we investigate the applicability of the method to speech disorders caused by head and neck cancer. Intelligibility was quantified by speech recognition on recordings of a standard text read by 41 German laryngectomized patients with cancer of the larynx or hypopharynx and 49 German patients who had suffered from oral cancer. The speech recognition provides the percentage of correctly recognized words of a sequence, that is, the word recognition rate. Automatic evaluation was compared to perceptual ratings by a panel of experts and to an age-matched control group. Both patient groups showed significantly lower word recognition rates than the control group. Automatic speech recognition yielded word recognition rates which complied with experts' evaluation of intelligibility on a significant level. Automatic speech recognition serves as a good means with low effort to objectify and quantify the most important aspect of pathologic speech—the intelligibility. The system was successfully applied to voice and speech disorders.

  5. On speech recognition during anaesthesia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Alapetite, Alexandre

    2007-01-01

    This PhD thesis in human-computer interfaces (informatics) studies the case of the anaesthesia record used during medical operations and the possibility to supplement it with speech recognition facilities. Problems and limitations have been identified with the traditional paper-based anaesthesia...... and inaccuracies in the anaesthesia record. Supplementing the electronic anaesthesia record interface with speech input facilities is proposed as one possible solution to a part of the problem. The testing of the various hypotheses has involved the development of a prototype of an electronic anaesthesia record...... interface with speech input facilities in Danish. The evaluation of the new interface was carried out in a full-scale anaesthesia simulator. This has been complemented by laboratory experiments on several aspects of speech recognition for this type of use, e.g. the effects of noise on speech recognition...

  6. 78 FR 63152 - Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-10-23

    ...] Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and Speech Disabilities... for telecommunications relay services (TRS) by eliminating standards for Internet-based relay services... comments, identified by CG Docket No. 03-123, by any of the following methods: Electronic Filers: Comments...

  7. Psychological characteristics, stressful life events and deliberate self-harm: findings from the Child & Adolescent Self-harm in Europe (CASE) Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Madge, Nicola; Hawton, Keith; McMahon, Elaine M; Corcoran, Paul; De Leo, Diego; de Wilde, Erik Jan; Fekete, Sandor; van Heeringen, Kees; Ystgaard, Mette; Arensman, Ella

    2011-10-01

    There is evidence to suggest that both psychological characteristics and stressful life events are contributory factors in deliberate self-harm among young people. These links, and the possibility of a dose-response relationship between self-harm and both psychological health and life events, were investigated in the context of a seven-country school-based study. Over 30,000, mainly 15 and 16 year olds, completed anonymous questionnaires at secondary schools in Belgium, England, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Australia. Pupils were asked to report on thoughts and episodes of self-harm, complete scales on depression and anxiety symptoms, impulsivity and self-esteem and indicate stressful events in their lives. Level and frequency of self-harm was judged according to whether they had thought about harming themselves or reported single or multiple self-harm episodes. Multinomial logistic regression assessed the extent to which psychological characteristics and stressful life events distinguished between adolescents with different self-harm histories. Increased severity of self-harm history was associated with greater depression, anxiety and impulsivity and lower self-esteem and an increased prevalence of all ten life event categories. Female gender, higher impulsivity and experiencing the suicide or self-harm of others, physical or sexual abuse and worries about sexual orientation independently differentiated single-episode self-harmers from adolescents with self-harm thoughts only. Female gender, higher depression, lower self-esteem, experiencing the suicide or self-harm of others, and trouble with the police independently distinguished multiple- from single-episode self-harmers. The findings reinforce the importance of psychological characteristics and stressful life events in adolescent self-harm but nonetheless suggest that some factors are more likely than others to be implicated.

  8. Does Foreign Aid Increase Foreign Direct Investment?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Selaya, Pablo; Sunesen, Eva Rytter

      The notion that foreign aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) are complementary sources of capital is conventional among governments and international cooperation agencies. This paper argues that the notion is incomplete. Within the framework of an open economy Solow model we show...... that the theoretical relationship between foreign aid and FDI is indeterminate. Aid may raise the marginal productivity of capital by financing complementary inputs, such as public infrastructure projects and human capital investment. However, aid may also crowd out productive private investments if it comes...... in the shape of physical capital transfers. We therefore turn to an empirical analysis of the relationship between FDI and disaggregated aid flows. Our results strongly support the hypotheses that aid invested in complementary inputs draws in foreign capital while aid invested in physical capital crowds out...

  9. Speech Alarms Pilot Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sandor, A.; Moses, H. R.

    2016-01-01

    Currently on the International Space Station (ISS) and other space vehicles Caution & Warning (C&W) alerts are represented with various auditory tones that correspond to the type of event. This system relies on the crew's ability to remember what each tone represents in a high stress, high workload environment when responding to the alert. Furthermore, crew receive a year or more in advance of the mission that makes remembering the semantic meaning of the alerts more difficult. The current system works for missions conducted close to Earth where ground operators can assist as needed. On long duration missions, however, they will need to work off-nominal events autonomously. There is evidence that speech alarms may be easier and faster to recognize, especially during an off-nominal event. The Information Presentation Directed Research Project (FY07-FY09) funded by the Human Research Program included several studies investigating C&W alerts. The studies evaluated tone alerts currently in use with NASA flight deck displays along with candidate speech alerts. A follow-on study used four types of speech alerts to investigate how quickly various types of auditory alerts with and without a speech component - either at the beginning or at the end of the tone - can be identified. Even though crew were familiar with the tone alert from training or direct mission experience, alerts starting with a speech component were identified faster than alerts starting with a tone. The current study replicated the results from the previous study in a more rigorous experimental design to determine if the candidate speech alarms are ready for transition to operations or if more research is needed. Four types of alarms (caution, warning, fire, and depressurization) were presented to participants in both tone and speech formats in laboratory settings and later in the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA). In the laboratory study, the alerts were presented by software and participants were

  10. Functional connectivity between face-movement and speech-intelligibility areas during auditory-only speech perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schall, Sonja; von Kriegstein, Katharina

    2014-01-01

    It has been proposed that internal simulation of the talking face of visually-known speakers facilitates auditory speech recognition. One prediction of this view is that brain areas involved in auditory-only speech comprehension interact with visual face-movement sensitive areas, even under auditory-only listening conditions. Here, we test this hypothesis using connectivity analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Participants (17 normal participants, 17 developmental prosopagnosics) first learned six speakers via brief voice-face or voice-occupation training (comprehension. Overall, the present findings indicate that learned visual information is integrated into the analysis of auditory-only speech and that this integration results from the interaction of task-relevant face-movement and auditory speech-sensitive areas.

  11. Visualizing structures of speech expressiveness

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Herbelin, Bruno; Jensen, Karl Kristoffer; Graugaard, Lars

    2008-01-01

    Speech is both beautiful and informative. In this work, a conceptual study of the speech, through investigation of the tower of Babel, the archetypal phonemes, and a study of the reasons of uses of language is undertaken in order to create an artistic work investigating the nature of speech. The ....... The artwork is presented at the Re:New festival in May 2008....

  12. Harm reduction through a social justice lens.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pauly, Bernadette

    2008-02-01

    People who are street involved such as those experiencing homelessness and drug use face multiple inequities in health and access to health care. Morbidity and mortality are significantly increased among those who are street involved. Incorporation of a harm reduction philosophy in health care has the potential to shift the moral context of health care delivery and enhance access to health care services. However, harm reduction with a primary focus on reducing the harms of drug use fails focus on the harms associated with the context of drug use such as homelessness, violence and poverty. Ethical analysis of the underlying values of harm reduction and examination of different conceptions of justice are discussed as a basis for action that addresses a broad range of harms associated with drug use. Theories of distributive justice that focus primarily on the distribution of material goods are limited as theoretical frameworks for addressing the root causes of harm associated with drug use. Social justice, reconceptualised and interpreted through a critical lens as described by Iris Marion Young, is presented as a promising alternative ethical framework. A critical reinterpretation of social justice leads to insights that can illuminate structural inequities that contribute to the harms associated with the context of drug use. Such an approach provides promise as means of informing policy that aims to reduce a broad range of harms associated with drug use such as homelessness and poverty.

  13. A Clinician Survey of Speech and Non-Speech Characteristics of Neurogenic Stuttering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Theys, Catherine; van Wieringen, Astrid; De Nil, Luc F.

    2008-01-01

    This study presents survey data on 58 Dutch-speaking patients with neurogenic stuttering following various neurological injuries. Stroke was the most prevalent cause of stuttering in our patients, followed by traumatic brain injury, neurodegenerative diseases, and other causes. Speech and non-speech characteristics were analyzed separately for…

  14. Automatic Speech Signal Analysis for Clinical Diagnosis and Assessment of Speech Disorders

    CERN Document Server

    Baghai-Ravary, Ladan

    2013-01-01

    Automatic Speech Signal Analysis for Clinical Diagnosis and Assessment of Speech Disorders provides a survey of methods designed to aid clinicians in the diagnosis and monitoring of speech disorders such as dysarthria and dyspraxia, with an emphasis on the signal processing techniques, statistical validity of the results presented in the literature, and the appropriateness of methods that do not require specialized equipment, rigorously controlled recording procedures or highly skilled personnel to interpret results. Such techniques offer the promise of a simple and cost-effective, yet objective, assessment of a range of medical conditions, which would be of great value to clinicians. The ideal scenario would begin with the collection of examples of the clients’ speech, either over the phone or using portable recording devices operated by non-specialist nursing staff. The recordings could then be analyzed initially to aid diagnosis of conditions, and subsequently to monitor the clients’ progress and res...

  15. Temporal modulations in speech and music.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ding, Nai; Patel, Aniruddh D; Chen, Lin; Butler, Henry; Luo, Cheng; Poeppel, David

    2017-10-01

    Speech and music have structured rhythms. Here we discuss a major acoustic correlate of spoken and musical rhythms, the slow (0.25-32Hz) temporal modulations in sound intensity and compare the modulation properties of speech and music. We analyze these modulations using over 25h of speech and over 39h of recordings of Western music. We show that the speech modulation spectrum is highly consistent across 9 languages (including languages with typologically different rhythmic characteristics). A different, but similarly consistent modulation spectrum is observed for music, including classical music played by single instruments of different types, symphonic, jazz, and rock. The temporal modulations of speech and music show broad but well-separated peaks around 5 and 2Hz, respectively. These acoustically dominant time scales may be intrinsic features of speech and music, a possibility which should be investigated using more culturally diverse samples in each domain. Distinct modulation timescales for speech and music could facilitate their perceptual analysis and its neural processing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Treatment for speech disorder in Friedreich ataxia and other hereditary ataxia syndromes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vogel, Adam P; Folker, Joanne; Poole, Matthew L

    2014-10-28

    Hereditary ataxia syndromes can result in significant speech impairment, a symptom thought to be responsive to treatment. The type of speech impairment most commonly reported in hereditary ataxias is dysarthria. Dysarthria is a collective term referring to a group of movement disorders affecting the muscular control of speech. Dysarthria affects the ability of individuals to communicate and to participate in society. This in turn reduces quality of life. Given the harmful impact of speech disorder on a person's functioning, treatment of speech impairment in these conditions is important and evidence-based interventions are needed. To assess the effects of interventions for speech disorder in adults and children with Friedreich ataxia and other hereditary ataxias. On 14 October 2013, we searched the Cochrane Neuromuscular Disease Group Specialized Register, CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL Plus, PsycINFO, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA), Dissertation Abstracts and trials registries. We checked all references in the identified trials to identify any additional published data. We considered for inclusion randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or quasi-RCTs that compared treatments for hereditary ataxias with no treatment, placebo or another treatment or combination of treatments, where investigators measured speech production. Two review authors independently selected trials for inclusion, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies using the standard methodological procedures expected by The Cochrane Collaboration. The review authors collected information on adverse effects from included studies. We did not conduct a meta-analysis as no two studies utilised the same assessment procedures within the same treatment. Fourteen clinical trials, involving 721 participants, met the criteria for inclusion in the review. Thirteen studies compared a pharmaceutical treatment with placebo (or a

  17. Moodle platform as na effective tool in preparing a basic portuguese as a foreign language course

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eduardo Rodrigues Goes

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available The research, currently in development, proposes to analyze the platform Moodle-Unesp in an online course of Portuguese as a foreign language (PLE. The Moodle platform is a Virtual Learning Environment (AVA that allows, among many actions, the creation and management of courses, feasibility of didactic material and student evaluations. The interaction in the virtual environment can be created by activities proposed by the teacher (administrator using the tools available in the "Activities" and "Resources" fields, available in the platform. Likewise, the association of tools of the "Activities" and "Resources" fields with digital didactic materials and adequate procedures for the teaching of Portuguese as a foreign language (PLE are presented. The results show that the Moodle-Unesp modules allow the insertion of a wide variety of tasks and content in different formats for the development of speech, writing, listening, reading and culture skills, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of the platform in teaching PLE.

  18. Foreign aid

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tarp, Finn

    2008-01-01

    Foreign aid has evolved significantly since the Second World War in response to a dramatically changing global political and economic context. This article (a) reviews this process and associated trends in the volume and distribution of foreign aid; (b) reviews the goals, principles and instituti......Foreign aid has evolved significantly since the Second World War in response to a dramatically changing global political and economic context. This article (a) reviews this process and associated trends in the volume and distribution of foreign aid; (b) reviews the goals, principles...... and institutions of the aid system; and (c) discusses whether aid has been effective. While much of the original optimism about the impact of foreign aid needed modification, there is solid evidence that aid has indeed helped further growth and poverty reduction...

  19. Dysfluencies in the speech of adults with intellectual disabilities and reported speech difficulties.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coppens-Hofman, Marjolein C; Terband, Hayo R; Maassen, Ben A M; van Schrojenstein Lantman-De Valk, Henny M J; van Zaalen-op't Hof, Yvonne; Snik, Ad F M

    2013-01-01

    In individuals with an intellectual disability, speech dysfluencies are more common than in the general population. In clinical practice, these fluency disorders are generally diagnosed and treated as stuttering rather than cluttering. To characterise the type of dysfluencies in adults with intellectual disabilities and reported speech difficulties with an emphasis on manifestations of stuttering and cluttering, which distinction is to help optimise treatment aimed at improving fluency and intelligibility. The dysfluencies in the spontaneous speech of 28 adults (18-40 years; 16 men) with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities (IQs 40-70), who were characterised as poorly intelligible by their caregivers, were analysed using the speech norms for typically developing adults and children. The speakers were subsequently assigned to different diagnostic categories by relating their resulting dysfluency profiles to mean articulatory rate and articulatory rate variability. Twenty-two (75%) of the participants showed clinically significant dysfluencies, of which 21% were classified as cluttering, 29% as cluttering-stuttering and 25% as clear cluttering at normal articulatory rate. The characteristic pattern of stuttering did not occur. The dysfluencies in the speech of adults with intellectual disabilities and poor intelligibility show patterns that are specific for this population. Together, the results suggest that in this specific group of dysfluent speakers interventions should be aimed at cluttering rather than stuttering. The reader will be able to (1) describe patterns of dysfluencies in the speech of adults with intellectual disabilities that are specific for this group of people, (2) explain that a high rate of dysfluencies in speech is potentially a major determiner of poor intelligibility in adults with ID and (3) describe suggestions for intervention focusing on cluttering rather than stuttering in dysfluent speakers with ID. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc

  20. A Diagnostic Marker to Discriminate Childhood Apraxia of Speech from Speech Delay: III. Theoretical Coherence of the Pause Marker with Speech Processing Deficits in Childhood Apraxia of Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shriberg, Lawrence D.; Strand, Edythe A.; Fourakis, Marios; Jakielski, Kathy J.; Hall, Sheryl D.; Karlsson, Heather B.; Mabie, Heather L.; McSweeny, Jane L.; Tilkens, Christie M.; Wilson, David L.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: Previous articles in this supplement described rationale for and development of the pause marker (PM), a diagnostic marker of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), and studies supporting its validity and reliability. The present article assesses the theoretical coherence of the PM with speech processing deficits in CAS. Method: PM and other…

  1. Speech and language support: How physicians can identify and treat speech and language delays in the office setting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moharir, Madhavi; Barnett, Noel; Taras, Jillian; Cole, Martha; Ford-Jones, E Lee; Levin, Leo

    2014-01-01

    Failure to recognize and intervene early in speech and language delays can lead to multifaceted and potentially severe consequences for early child development and later literacy skills. While routine evaluations of speech and language during well-child visits are recommended, there is no standardized (office) approach to facilitate this. Furthermore, extensive wait times for speech and language pathology consultation represent valuable lost time for the child and family. Using speech and language expertise, and paediatric collaboration, key content for an office-based tool was developed. early and accurate identification of speech and language delays as well as children at risk for literacy challenges; appropriate referral to speech and language services when required; and teaching and, thus, empowering parents to create rich and responsive language environments at home. Using this tool, in combination with the Canadian Paediatric Society's Read, Speak, Sing and Grow Literacy Initiative, physicians will be better positioned to offer practical strategies to caregivers to enhance children's speech and language capabilities. The tool represents a strategy to evaluate speech and language delays. It depicts age-specific linguistic/phonetic milestones and suggests interventions. The tool represents a practical interim treatment while the family is waiting for formal speech and language therapy consultation.

  2. Abortion and compelled physician speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orentlicher, David

    2015-01-01

    Informed consent mandates for abortion providers may infringe the First Amendment's freedom of speech. On the other hand, they may reinforce the physician's duty to obtain informed consent. Courts can promote both doctrines by ensuring that compelled physician speech pertains to medical facts about abortion rather than abortion ideology and that compelled speech is truthful and not misleading. © 2015 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Inc.

  3. Do Korean L2 learners have a "foreign accent" when they speak French? Production and perception experiments on rhythm and intonation

    OpenAIRE

    Grandon , Bénédicte; Yoo , Hiyon

    2014-01-01

    International audience; French and Korean are two languages with similar prosodic characteristics as far as rhythm and intonation are concerned. In this paper, we present the results of production and perception tests where we describe the prosodic characteristics of Korean L2 learners of French. Our aim is to analyze the impression of "foreign accent" for two prosodic components (intonation and rhythm) of speech produced by Korean L2 learners of French and the perception of this "accent" by ...

  4. Speech enhancement

    CERN Document Server

    Benesty, Jacob; Chen, Jingdong

    2006-01-01

    We live in a noisy world! In all applications (telecommunications, hands-free communications, recording, human-machine interfaces, etc.) that require at least one microphone, the signal of interest is usually contaminated by noise and reverberation. As a result, the microphone signal has to be ""cleaned"" with digital signal processing tools before it is played out, transmitted, or stored.This book is about speech enhancement. Different well-known and state-of-the-art methods for noise reduction, with one or multiple microphones, are discussed. By speech enhancement, we mean not only noise red

  5. Effect of speech rate variation on acoustic phone stability in Afrikaans speech recognition

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Badenhorst, JAC

    2007-11-01

    Full Text Available The authors analyse the effect of speech rate variation on Afrikaans phone stability from an acoustic perspective. Specifically they introduce two techniques for the acoustic analysis of speech rate variation, apply these techniques to an Afrikaans...

  6. Global Political Aspects of Putin’s Speech at the 43-th Munich Security Conference. One Decade Past

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Николай Петрович Пархитько

    2018-12-01

    Full Text Available In February 10th 2007 President of Russia V. Putin held a speech at the 43th Munich Security Conference. The speech included both the matters of security and global policy. Researchers in Russia together as well as their western colleagues (political scientists, journalists, historians and other analysts obviously came to the same opinion - that was the speech of the Russian president that attracted all the attention to this annual conference not being so traditionally popular as, for example, the “G-8” or the APEC summits. And though the estimations of the ideas advocated by Putin in his speech predictably differ depending on political creed and engagement of the analysts (sometimes that was also the matter of their erudition, the importance of the event was undisputable. Today one decade past the event we have the opportunity not just to analyze the crucial principles which Putin tried to clarify to his foreign partners, but also to verify them through the prism of approbation, as the scientists say. But before we start to study the speech itself, we should reveal the global political circumstances, in which the Conference took place. What was Russia as a global power in the beginning of the XXI century and was it a true global power in 2007? Was the political weight of the Russian president enough for bringing the influence into the world? Finally, what was the perceptions of Russia in the western community 15 years after the greatest transformation of the global political role of the country in Europe and in the world? After finding the answers on these questions we will reveal the main theses of the Russian presidents’ speech and will try to give them possibly candid estimation. In the work the authors used a wide methodological list. The historical-analytical method made it possible to reveal the evolution of the problems outlined in the speech of V.V. Putin for the specified time period (10 years. The comparative method allowed us

  7. Speech, "Inner Speech," and the Development of Short-Term Memory: Effects of Picture-Labeling on Recall.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hitch, Graham J.; And Others

    1991-01-01

    Reports on experiments to determine effects of overt speech on children's use of inner speech in short-term memory. Word length and phonemic similarity had greater effects on older children and when pictures were labeled at presentation. Suggests that speaking or listening to speech activates an internal articulatory loop. (Author/GH)

  8. Phonetic recalibration of speech by text

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Keetels, M.N.; Schakel, L.; de Bonte, M.; Vroomen, J.

    2016-01-01

    Listeners adjust their phonetic categories to cope with variations in the speech signal (phonetic recalibration). Previous studies have shown that lipread speech (and word knowledge) can adjust the perception of ambiguous speech and can induce phonetic adjustments (Bertelson, Vroomen, & de Gelder in

  9. Epoch-based analysis of speech signals

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    on speech production characteristics, but also helps in accurate analysis of speech. .... include time delay estimation, speech enhancement from single and multi- ...... log. (. E[k]. ∑K−1 l=0. E[l]. ) ,. (7) where K is the number of samples in the ...

  10. Automatic Speech Recognition Systems for the Evaluation of Voice and Speech Disorders in Head and Neck Cancer

    OpenAIRE

    Andreas Maier; Tino Haderlein; Florian Stelzle; Elmar Nöth; Emeka Nkenke; Frank Rosanowski; Anne Schützenberger; Maria Schuster

    2010-01-01

    In patients suffering from head and neck cancer, speech intelligibility is often restricted. For assessment and outcome measurements, automatic speech recognition systems have previously been shown to be appropriate for objective and quick evaluation of intelligibility. In this study we investigate the applicability of the method to speech disorders caused by head and neck cancer. Intelligibility was quantified by speech recognition on recordings of a standard text read by 41 German laryngect...

  11. The impact of iconic gestures on foreign language word learning and its neural substrate.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Macedonia, Manuela; Müller, Karsten; Friederici, Angela D

    2011-06-01

    Vocabulary acquisition represents a major challenge in foreign language learning. Research has demonstrated that gestures accompanying speech have an impact on memory for verbal information in the speakers' mother tongue and, as recently shown, also in foreign language learning. However, the neural basis of this effect remains unclear. In a within-subjects design, we compared learning of novel words coupled with iconic and meaningless gestures. Iconic gestures helped learners to significantly better retain the verbal material over time. After the training, participants' brain activity was registered by means of fMRI while performing a word recognition task. Brain activations to words learned with iconic and with meaningless gestures were contrasted. We found activity in the premotor cortices for words encoded with iconic gestures. In contrast, words encoded with meaningless gestures elicited a network associated with cognitive control. These findings suggest that memory performance for newly learned words is not driven by the motor component as such, but by the motor image that matches an underlying representation of the word's semantics. Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

  12. Nobel peace speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joshua FRYE

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available The Nobel Peace Prize has long been considered the premier peace prize in the world. According to Geir Lundestad, Secretary of the Nobel Committee, of the 300 some peace prizes awarded worldwide, “none is in any way as well known and as highly respected as the Nobel Peace Prize” (Lundestad, 2001. Nobel peace speech is a unique and significant international site of public discourse committed to articulating the universal grammar of peace. Spanning over 100 years of sociopolitical history on the world stage, Nobel Peace Laureates richly represent an important cross-section of domestic and international issues increasingly germane to many publics. Communication scholars’ interest in this rhetorical genre has increased in the past decade. Yet, the norm has been to analyze a single speech artifact from a prestigious or controversial winner rather than examine the collection of speeches for generic commonalities of import. In this essay, we analyze the discourse of Nobel peace speech inductively and argue that the organizing principle of the Nobel peace speech genre is the repetitive form of normative liberal principles and values that function as rhetorical topoi. These topoi include freedom and justice and appeal to the inviolable, inborn right of human beings to exercise certain political and civil liberties and the expectation of equality of protection from totalitarian and tyrannical abuses. The significance of this essay to contemporary communication theory is to expand our theoretical understanding of rhetoric’s role in the maintenance and development of an international and cross-cultural vocabulary for the grammar of peace.

  13. Speech-Language Dissociations, Distractibility, and Childhood Stuttering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conture, Edward G.; Walden, Tedra A.; Lambert, Warren E.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose This study investigated the relation among speech-language dissociations, attentional distractibility, and childhood stuttering. Method Participants were 82 preschool-age children who stutter (CWS) and 120 who do not stutter (CWNS). Correlation-based statistics (Bates, Appelbaum, Salcedo, Saygin, & Pizzamiglio, 2003) identified dissociations across 5 norm-based speech-language subtests. The Behavioral Style Questionnaire Distractibility subscale measured attentional distractibility. Analyses addressed (a) between-groups differences in the number of children exhibiting speech-language dissociations; (b) between-groups distractibility differences; (c) the relation between distractibility and speech-language dissociations; and (d) whether interactions between distractibility and dissociations predicted the frequency of total, stuttered, and nonstuttered disfluencies. Results More preschool-age CWS exhibited speech-language dissociations compared with CWNS, and more boys exhibited dissociations compared with girls. In addition, male CWS were less distractible than female CWS and female CWNS. For CWS, but not CWNS, less distractibility (i.e., greater attention) was associated with more speech-language dissociations. Last, interactions between distractibility and dissociations did not predict speech disfluencies in CWS or CWNS. Conclusions The present findings suggest that for preschool-age CWS, attentional processes are associated with speech-language dissociations. Future investigations are warranted to better understand the directionality of effect of this association (e.g., inefficient attentional processes → speech-language dissociations vs. inefficient attentional processes ← speech-language dissociations). PMID:26126203

  14. International aspirations for speech-language pathologists' practice with multilingual children with speech sound disorders: development of a position paper.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McLeod, Sharynne; Verdon, Sarah; Bowen, Caroline

    2013-01-01

    A major challenge for the speech-language pathology profession in many cultures is to address the mismatch between the "linguistic homogeneity of the speech-language pathology profession and the linguistic diversity of its clientele" (Caesar & Kohler, 2007, p. 198). This paper outlines the development of the Multilingual Children with Speech Sound Disorders: Position Paper created to guide speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') facilitation of multilingual children's speech. An international expert panel was assembled comprising 57 researchers (SLPs, linguists, phoneticians, and speech scientists) with knowledge about multilingual children's speech, or children with speech sound disorders. Combined, they had worked in 33 countries and used 26 languages in professional practice. Fourteen panel members met for a one-day workshop to identify key points for inclusion in the position paper. Subsequently, 42 additional panel members participated online to contribute to drafts of the position paper. A thematic analysis was undertaken of the major areas of discussion using two data sources: (a) face-to-face workshop transcript (133 pages) and (b) online discussion artifacts (104 pages). Finally, a moderator with international expertise in working with children with speech sound disorders facilitated the incorporation of the panel's recommendations. The following themes were identified: definitions, scope, framework, evidence, challenges, practices, and consideration of a multilingual audience. The resulting position paper contains guidelines for providing services to multilingual children with speech sound disorders (http://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/position-paper). The paper is structured using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: Children and Youth Version (World Health Organization, 2007) and incorporates recommendations for (a) children and families, (b) SLPs' assessment and intervention, (c) SLPs' professional

  15. Harm reduction as a strategy for supporting people who self-harm on mental health wards : the views and experiences of practitioners

    OpenAIRE

    James, Karen; Samuels, Isaac; Moran, Paul; Stewart, Duncan

    2017-01-01

    Background: Harm reduction has had positive outcomes for people using sexual health and substance misuse services. Clinical guidance recommends these approaches may be appropriately adopted by mental health practitioners when managing some people who self-harm. There has, however, been very little research in this area. Methods: We explored practitioners’ views of harm reduction as a strategy for supporting people who self-harm. The Self Harm Antipathy Scale (SHAS) was administered to a rando...

  16. Free Speech. No. 38.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kane, Peter E., Ed.

    This issue of "Free Speech" contains the following articles: "Daniel Schoor Relieved of Reporting Duties" by Laurence Stern, "The Sellout at CBS" by Michael Harrington, "Defending Dan Schorr" by Tome Wicker, "Speech to the Washington Press Club, February 25, 1976" by Daniel Schorr, "Funds…

  17. APPRECIATING SPEECH THROUGH GAMING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mario T Carreon

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper discusses the Speech and Phoneme Recognition as an Educational Aid for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired (SPREAD application and the ongoing research on its deployment as a tool for motivating deaf and hearing impaired students to learn and appreciate speech. This application uses the Sphinx-4 voice recognition system to analyze the vocalization of the student and provide prompt feedback on their pronunciation. The packaging of the application as an interactive game aims to provide additional motivation for the deaf and hearing impaired student through visual motivation for them to learn and appreciate speech.

  18. Global Freedom of Speech

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Binderup, Lars Grassme

    2007-01-01

    , as opposed to a legal norm, that curbs exercises of the right to free speech that offend the feelings or beliefs of members from other cultural groups. The paper rejects the suggestion that acceptance of such a norm is in line with liberal egalitarian thinking. Following a review of the classical liberal...... egalitarian reasons for free speech - reasons from overall welfare, from autonomy and from respect for the equality of citizens - it is argued that these reasons outweigh the proposed reasons for curbing culturally offensive speech. Currently controversial cases such as that of the Danish Cartoon Controversy...

  19. Extensions to the Speech Disorders Classification System (SDCS)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shriberg, Lawrence D.; Fourakis, Marios; Hall, Sheryl D.; Karlsson, Heather B.; Lohmeier, Heather L.; McSweeny, Jane L.; Potter, Nancy L.; Scheer-Cohen, Alison R.; Strand, Edythe A.; Tilkens, Christie M.; Wilson, David L.

    2010-01-01

    This report describes three extensions to a classification system for paediatric speech sound disorders termed the Speech Disorders Classification System (SDCS). Part I describes a classification extension to the SDCS to differentiate motor speech disorders from speech delay and to differentiate among three sub-types of motor speech disorders.…

  20. Frontal and temporal contributions to understanding the iconic co-speech gestures that accompany speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dick, Anthony Steven; Mok, Eva H; Raja Beharelle, Anjali; Goldin-Meadow, Susan; Small, Steven L

    2014-03-01

    In everyday conversation, listeners often rely on a speaker's gestures to clarify any ambiguities in the verbal message. Using fMRI during naturalistic story comprehension, we examined which brain regions in the listener are sensitive to speakers' iconic gestures. We focused on iconic gestures that contribute information not found in the speaker's talk, compared with those that convey information redundant with the speaker's talk. We found that three regions-left inferior frontal gyrus triangular (IFGTr) and opercular (IFGOp) portions, and left posterior middle temporal gyrus (MTGp)--responded more strongly when gestures added information to nonspecific language, compared with when they conveyed the same information in more specific language; in other words, when gesture disambiguated speech as opposed to reinforced it. An increased BOLD response was not found in these regions when the nonspecific language was produced without gesture, suggesting that IFGTr, IFGOp, and MTGp are involved in integrating semantic information across gesture and speech. In addition, we found that activity in the posterior superior temporal sulcus (STSp), previously thought to be involved in gesture-speech integration, was not sensitive to the gesture-speech relation. Together, these findings clarify the neurobiology of gesture-speech integration and contribute to an emerging picture of how listeners glean meaning from gestures that accompany speech. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  1. European rating of drug harms

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Amsterdam, Jan; Nutt, David; Phillips, Lawrence; van den Brink, Wim

    2015-01-01

    The present paper describes the results of a rating study performed by a group of European Union (EU) drug experts using the multi-criteria decision analysis model for evaluating drug harms. Forty drug experts from throughout the EU scored 20 drugs on 16 harm criteria. The expert group also assessed

  2. Brief Report: The Self Harm Questionnaire--A New Tool Designed to Improve Identification of Self Harm in Adolescents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ougrin, Dennis; Boege, Isabel

    2013-01-01

    The Self Harm Questionnaire (SHQ) aiming at identification of self-harm in adolescents has been developed and piloted in a sample of 12-17 year olds (n = 100). The adolescents were recruited from both in- and outpatient psychiatric services. Concurrent validity of the SHQ was evaluated by comparing the SHQ results with recorded self harm in the…

  3. Freedom of racist speech: Ego and expressive threats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    White, Mark H; Crandall, Christian S

    2017-09-01

    Do claims of "free speech" provide cover for prejudice? We investigate whether this defense of racist or hate speech serves as a justification for prejudice. In a series of 8 studies (N = 1,624), we found that explicit racial prejudice is a reliable predictor of the "free speech defense" of racist expression. Participants endorsed free speech values for singing racists songs or posting racist comments on social media; people high in prejudice endorsed free speech more than people low in prejudice (meta-analytic r = .43). This endorsement was not principled-high levels of prejudice did not predict endorsement of free speech values when identical speech was directed at coworkers or the police. Participants low in explicit racial prejudice actively avoided endorsing free speech values in racialized conditions compared to nonracial conditions, but participants high in racial prejudice increased their endorsement of free speech values in racialized conditions. Three experiments failed to find evidence that defense of racist speech by the highly prejudiced was based in self-relevant or self-protective motives. Two experiments found evidence that the free speech argument protected participants' own freedom to express their attitudes; the defense of other's racist speech seems motivated more by threats to autonomy than threats to self-regard. These studies serve as an elaboration of the Justification-Suppression Model (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003) of prejudice expression. The justification of racist speech by endorsing fundamental political values can serve to buffer racial and hate speech from normative disapproval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  4. Speech coding, reconstruction and recognition using acoustics and electromagnetic waves

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Holzrichter, J.F.; Ng, L.C.

    1998-01-01

    The use of EM radiation in conjunction with simultaneously recorded acoustic speech information enables a complete mathematical coding of acoustic speech. The methods include the forming of a feature vector for each pitch period of voiced speech and the forming of feature vectors for each time frame of unvoiced, as well as for combined voiced and unvoiced speech. The methods include how to deconvolve the speech excitation function from the acoustic speech output to describe the transfer function each time frame. The formation of feature vectors defining all acoustic speech units over well defined time frames can be used for purposes of speech coding, speech compression, speaker identification, language-of-speech identification, speech recognition, speech synthesis, speech translation, speech telephony, and speech teaching. 35 figs

  5. Speech coding, reconstruction and recognition using acoustics and electromagnetic waves

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holzrichter, John F.; Ng, Lawrence C.

    1998-01-01

    The use of EM radiation in conjunction with simultaneously recorded acoustic speech information enables a complete mathematical coding of acoustic speech. The methods include the forming of a feature vector for each pitch period of voiced speech and the forming of feature vectors for each time frame of unvoiced, as well as for combined voiced and unvoiced speech. The methods include how to deconvolve the speech excitation function from the acoustic speech output to describe the transfer function each time frame. The formation of feature vectors defining all acoustic speech units over well defined time frames can be used for purposes of speech coding, speech compression, speaker identification, language-of-speech identification, speech recognition, speech synthesis, speech translation, speech telephony, and speech teaching.

  6. Speech and language support: How physicians can identify and treat speech and language delays in the office setting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moharir, Madhavi; Barnett, Noel; Taras, Jillian; Cole, Martha; Ford-Jones, E Lee; Levin, Leo

    2014-01-01

    Failure to recognize and intervene early in speech and language delays can lead to multifaceted and potentially severe consequences for early child development and later literacy skills. While routine evaluations of speech and language during well-child visits are recommended, there is no standardized (office) approach to facilitate this. Furthermore, extensive wait times for speech and language pathology consultation represent valuable lost time for the child and family. Using speech and language expertise, and paediatric collaboration, key content for an office-based tool was developed. The tool aimed to help physicians achieve three main goals: early and accurate identification of speech and language delays as well as children at risk for literacy challenges; appropriate referral to speech and language services when required; and teaching and, thus, empowering parents to create rich and responsive language environments at home. Using this tool, in combination with the Canadian Paediatric Society’s Read, Speak, Sing and Grow Literacy Initiative, physicians will be better positioned to offer practical strategies to caregivers to enhance children’s speech and language capabilities. The tool represents a strategy to evaluate speech and language delays. It depicts age-specific linguistic/phonetic milestones and suggests interventions. The tool represents a practical interim treatment while the family is waiting for formal speech and language therapy consultation. PMID:24627648

  7. Application of wavelets in speech processing

    CERN Document Server

    Farouk, Mohamed Hesham

    2014-01-01

    This book provides a survey on wide-spread of employing wavelets analysis  in different applications of speech processing. The author examines development and research in different application of speech processing. The book also summarizes the state of the art research on wavelet in speech processing.

  8. Recent advances in nonlinear speech processing

    CERN Document Server

    Faundez-Zanuy, Marcos; Esposito, Antonietta; Cordasco, Gennaro; Drugman, Thomas; Solé-Casals, Jordi; Morabito, Francesco

    2016-01-01

    This book presents recent advances in nonlinear speech processing beyond nonlinear techniques. It shows that it exploits heuristic and psychological models of human interaction in order to succeed in the implementations of socially believable VUIs and applications for human health and psychological support. The book takes into account the multifunctional role of speech and what is “outside of the box” (see Björn Schuller’s foreword). To this aim, the book is organized in 6 sections, each collecting a small number of short chapters reporting advances “inside” and “outside” themes related to nonlinear speech research. The themes emphasize theoretical and practical issues for modelling socially believable speech interfaces, ranging from efforts to capture the nature of sound changes in linguistic contexts and the timing nature of speech; labors to identify and detect speech features that help in the diagnosis of psychological and neuronal disease, attempts to improve the effectiveness and performa...

  9. Perceived harmfulness of substance use: A pilot study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Siddharth Sarkar

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Harm ratings of substances help in understanding the perception toward substance use and formulating policies. Evidence of such harm ratings by substance users and their caregivers provides a clearer perspective of those who experience and observe such harm closely. Materials and Methods: Substance users and their caregivers were recruited from the Drug De-addiction and Treatment Centre of PGIMER, Chandigarh. Sociodemographic details of the subjects were noted. The subjects were then asked to rate a list of psychoactive preparations according to the harms they thought the preparation caused. The list of substances was developed taking into consideration substance commonly encountered in the geographical area. The harm ratings were transformed on a scale of 0-100. Results: All subjects were males and majority of them were educated above 10 th standard, were not employed and belonged to urban background. Most of them had taken psychoactive substances in their lifetimes but were currently abstinent. Most of the subjects endorsed intravenous drugs as the most harmful, followed by heroin. Beer and chewable tobacco considered the least harmful substances. Greater degree of education was associated with lower harm rankings for heroin, cannabis, dextropropoxyphene, and raw opium; while urban residence was associated with greater harm ratings for cannabis and raw opium. Differences in the harms were perceived for different preparations of the same active compound for alcohol and nicotine. Conclusion: Harm ratings of substances can be a useful guide while formulating policies and allocating resources. Need for further research extending this pilot study is emphasized.

  10. Speech and non-speech processing in children with phonological disorders: an electrophysiological study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Isabela Crivellaro Gonçalves

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: To determine whether neurophysiological auditory brainstem responses to clicks and repeated speech stimuli differ between typically developing children and children with phonological disorders. INTRODUCTION: Phonological disorders are language impairments resulting from inadequate use of adult phonological language rules and are among the most common speech and language disorders in children (prevalence: 8 - 9%. Our hypothesis is that children with phonological disorders have basic differences in the way that their brains encode acoustic signals at brainstem level when compared to normal counterparts. METHODS: We recorded click and speech evoked auditory brainstem responses in 18 typically developing children (control group and in 18 children who were clinically diagnosed with phonological disorders (research group. The age range of the children was from 7-11 years. RESULTS: The research group exhibited significantly longer latency responses to click stimuli (waves I, III and V and speech stimuli (waves V and A when compared to the control group. DISCUSSION: These results suggest that the abnormal encoding of speech sounds may be a biological marker of phonological disorders. However, these results cannot define the biological origins of phonological problems. We also observed that speech-evoked auditory brainstem responses had a higher specificity/sensitivity for identifying phonological disorders than click-evoked auditory brainstem responses. CONCLUSIONS: Early stages of the auditory pathway processing of an acoustic stimulus are not similar in typically developing children and those with phonological disorders. These findings suggest that there are brainstem auditory pathway abnormalities in children with phonological disorders.

  11. Conflict monitoring in speech processing : An fMRI study of error detection in speech production and perception

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gauvin, Hanna; De Baene, W.; Brass, Marcel; Hartsuiker, Robert

    2016-01-01

    To minimize the number of errors in speech, and thereby facilitate communication, speech is monitored before articulation. It is, however, unclear at which level during speech production monitoring takes place, and what mechanisms are used to detect and correct errors. The present study investigated

  12. Religious Speech in the Military: Freedoms and Limitations

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    abridging the freedom of speech .” Speech is construed broadly and includes both oral and written speech, as well as expressive conduct and displays when...intended to convey a message that is likely to be understood.7 Religious speech is certainly included. As a bedrock constitutional right, freedom of speech has...to good order and discipline or of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces)—the First Amendment’s freedom of speech will not provide them

  13. Perceived Speech Quality Estimation Using DTW Algorithm

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Arsenovski

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available In this paper a method for speech quality estimation is evaluated by simulating the transfer of speech over packet switched and mobile networks. The proposed system uses Dynamic Time Warping algorithm for test and received speech comparison. Several tests have been made on a test speech sample of a single speaker with simulated packet (frame loss effects on the perceived speech. The achieved results have been compared with measured PESQ values on the used transmission channel and their correlation has been observed.

  14. Audiovisual Asynchrony Detection in Human Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maier, Joost X.; Di Luca, Massimiliano; Noppeney, Uta

    2011-01-01

    Combining information from the visual and auditory senses can greatly enhance intelligibility of natural speech. Integration of audiovisual speech signals is robust even when temporal offsets are present between the component signals. In the present study, we characterized the temporal integration window for speech and nonspeech stimuli with…

  15. Detection of target phonemes in spontaneous and read speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mehta, G; Cutler, A

    1988-01-01

    Although spontaneous speech occurs more frequently in most listeners' experience than read speech, laboratory studies of human speech recognition typically use carefully controlled materials read from a script. The phonological and prosodic characteristics of spontaneous and read speech differ considerably, however, which suggests that laboratory results may not generalise to the recognition of spontaneous speech. In the present study listeners were presented with both spontaneous and read speech materials, and their response time to detect word-initial target phonemes was measured. Responses were, overall, equally fast in each speech mode. However, analysis of effects previously reported in phoneme detection studies revealed significant differences between speech modes. In read speech but not in spontaneous speech, later targets were detected more rapidly than targets preceded by short words. In contrast, in spontaneous speech but not in read speech, targets were detected more rapidly in accented than in unaccented words and in strong than in weak syllables. An explanation for this pattern is offered in terms of characteristic prosodic differences between spontaneous and read speech. The results support claims from previous work that listeners pay great attention to prosodic information in the process of recognising speech.

  16. Voice Activity Detection. Fundamentals and Speech Recognition System Robustness

    OpenAIRE

    Ramirez, J.; Gorriz, J. M.; Segura, J. C.

    2007-01-01

    This chapter has shown an overview of the main challenges in robust speech detection and a review of the state of the art and applications. VADs are frequently used in a number of applications including speech coding, speech enhancement and speech recognition. A precise VAD extracts a set of discriminative speech features from the noisy speech and formulates the decision in terms of well defined rule. The chapter has summarized three robust VAD methods that yield high speech/non-speech discri...

  17. Religion, hate speech, and non-domination

    OpenAIRE

    Bonotti, Matteo

    2017-01-01

    In this paper I argue that one way of explaining what is wrong with hate speech is by critically assessing what kind of freedom free speech involves and, relatedly, what kind of freedom hate speech undermines. More specifically, I argue that the main arguments for freedom of speech (e.g. from truth, from autonomy, and from democracy) rely on a “positive” conception of freedom intended as autonomy and self-mastery (Berlin, 2006), and can only partially help us to understand what is wrong with ...

  18. Modelling speech intelligibility in adverse conditions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jørgensen, Søren; Dau, Torsten

    2013-01-01

    Jørgensen and Dau (J Acoust Soc Am 130:1475-1487, 2011) proposed the speech-based envelope power spectrum model (sEPSM) in an attempt to overcome the limitations of the classical speech transmission index (STI) and speech intelligibility index (SII) in conditions with nonlinearly processed speech...... subjected to phase jitter, a condition in which the spectral structure of the intelligibility of speech signal is strongly affected, while the broadband temporal envelope is kept largely intact. In contrast, the effects of this distortion can be predicted -successfully by the spectro-temporal modulation...... suggest that the SNRenv might reflect a powerful decision metric, while some explicit across-frequency analysis seems crucial in some conditions. How such across-frequency analysis is "realized" in the auditory system remains unresolved....

  19. Changes to Ontario's electricity market could be harmful to your health

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1998-09-01

    Mounting concerns that electricity deregulation will increase the use of coal-fired power generation to produce low-cost electricity are discussed. The Ontario Medical Association has issued warnings that pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, mercury and carbon dioxide cause asthma, bronchitis and cancer in humans. In the environment, they cause smog, acid rain and climate change. In a deregulated electricity market, industries and municipal utilities will have the choice to purchase power from any domestic or foreign supplier. It is considered likely that many will choose to purchase electricity from the cheapest suppliers. These happen to be coal-fired generating stations, which are also the highest polluters. It was argued that the health and environmental costs of making this choice would be very high. A way to mitigate these harmful effects is for the government of Ontario to establish pollution limits for all the electricity sold in the province - limits that will actually reduce air pollution. figs

  20. Speech and audio processing for coding, enhancement and recognition

    CERN Document Server

    Togneri, Roberto; Narasimha, Madihally

    2015-01-01

    This book describes the basic principles underlying the generation, coding, transmission and enhancement of speech and audio signals, including advanced statistical and machine learning techniques for speech and speaker recognition with an overview of the key innovations in these areas. Key research undertaken in speech coding, speech enhancement, speech recognition, emotion recognition and speaker diarization are also presented, along with recent advances and new paradigms in these areas. ·         Offers readers a single-source reference on the significant applications of speech and audio processing to speech coding, speech enhancement and speech/speaker recognition. Enables readers involved in algorithm development and implementation issues for speech coding to understand the historical development and future challenges in speech coding research; ·         Discusses speech coding methods yielding bit-streams that are multi-rate and scalable for Voice-over-IP (VoIP) Networks; ·     �...

  1. Sensorimotor influences on speech perception in infancy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bruderer, Alison G; Danielson, D Kyle; Kandhadai, Padmapriya; Werker, Janet F

    2015-11-03

    The influence of speech production on speech perception is well established in adults. However, because adults have a long history of both perceiving and producing speech, the extent to which the perception-production linkage is due to experience is unknown. We addressed this issue by asking whether articulatory configurations can influence infants' speech perception performance. To eliminate influences from specific linguistic experience, we studied preverbal, 6-mo-old infants and tested the discrimination of a nonnative, and hence never-before-experienced, speech sound distinction. In three experimental studies, we used teething toys to control the position and movement of the tongue tip while the infants listened to the speech sounds. Using ultrasound imaging technology, we verified that the teething toys consistently and effectively constrained the movement and positioning of infants' tongues. With a looking-time procedure, we found that temporarily restraining infants' articulators impeded their discrimination of a nonnative consonant contrast but only when the relevant articulator was selectively restrained to prevent the movements associated with producing those sounds. Our results provide striking evidence that even before infants speak their first words and without specific listening experience, sensorimotor information from the articulators influences speech perception. These results transform theories of speech perception by suggesting that even at the initial stages of development, oral-motor movements influence speech sound discrimination. Moreover, an experimentally induced "impairment" in articulator movement can compromise speech perception performance, raising the question of whether long-term oral-motor impairments may impact perceptual development.

  2. Microscopic prediction of speech intelligibility in spatially distributed speech-shaped noise for normal-hearing listeners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geravanchizadeh, Masoud; Fallah, Ali

    2015-12-01

    A binaural and psychoacoustically motivated intelligibility model, based on a well-known monaural microscopic model is proposed. This model simulates a phoneme recognition task in the presence of spatially distributed speech-shaped noise in anechoic scenarios. In the proposed model, binaural advantage effects are considered by generating a feature vector for a dynamic-time-warping speech recognizer. This vector consists of three subvectors incorporating two monaural subvectors to model the better-ear hearing, and a binaural subvector to simulate the binaural unmasking effect. The binaural unit of the model is based on equalization-cancellation theory. This model operates blindly, which means separate recordings of speech and noise are not required for the predictions. Speech intelligibility tests were conducted with 12 normal hearing listeners by collecting speech reception thresholds (SRTs) in the presence of single and multiple sources of speech-shaped noise. The comparison of the model predictions with the measured binaural SRTs, and with the predictions of a macroscopic binaural model called extended equalization-cancellation, shows that this approach predicts the intelligibility in anechoic scenarios with good precision. The square of the correlation coefficient (r(2)) and the mean-absolute error between the model predictions and the measurements are 0.98 and 0.62 dB, respectively.

  3. Prediction and constraint in audiovisual speech perception

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peelle, Jonathan E.; Sommers, Mitchell S.

    2015-01-01

    During face-to-face conversational speech listeners must efficiently process a rapid and complex stream of multisensory information. Visual speech can serve as a critical complement to auditory information because it provides cues to both the timing of the incoming acoustic signal (the amplitude envelope, influencing attention and perceptual sensitivity) and its content (place and manner of articulation, constraining lexical selection). Here we review behavioral and neurophysiological evidence regarding listeners' use of visual speech information. Multisensory integration of audiovisual speech cues improves recognition accuracy, particularly for speech in noise. Even when speech is intelligible based solely on auditory information, adding visual information may reduce the cognitive demands placed on listeners through increasing precision of prediction. Electrophysiological studies demonstrate oscillatory cortical entrainment to speech in auditory cortex is enhanced when visual speech is present, increasing sensitivity to important acoustic cues. Neuroimaging studies also suggest increased activity in auditory cortex when congruent visual information is available, but additionally emphasize the involvement of heteromodal regions of posterior superior temporal sulcus as playing a role in integrative processing. We interpret these findings in a framework of temporally-focused lexical competition in which visual speech information affects auditory processing to increase sensitivity to auditory information through an early integration mechanism, and a late integration stage that incorporates specific information about a speaker's articulators to constrain the number of possible candidates in a spoken utterance. Ultimately it is words compatible with both auditory and visual information that most strongly determine successful speech perception during everyday listening. Thus, audiovisual speech perception is accomplished through multiple stages of integration, supported

  4. Prediction and constraint in audiovisual speech perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peelle, Jonathan E; Sommers, Mitchell S

    2015-07-01

    During face-to-face conversational speech listeners must efficiently process a rapid and complex stream of multisensory information. Visual speech can serve as a critical complement to auditory information because it provides cues to both the timing of the incoming acoustic signal (the amplitude envelope, influencing attention and perceptual sensitivity) and its content (place and manner of articulation, constraining lexical selection). Here we review behavioral and neurophysiological evidence regarding listeners' use of visual speech information. Multisensory integration of audiovisual speech cues improves recognition accuracy, particularly for speech in noise. Even when speech is intelligible based solely on auditory information, adding visual information may reduce the cognitive demands placed on listeners through increasing the precision of prediction. Electrophysiological studies demonstrate that oscillatory cortical entrainment to speech in auditory cortex is enhanced when visual speech is present, increasing sensitivity to important acoustic cues. Neuroimaging studies also suggest increased activity in auditory cortex when congruent visual information is available, but additionally emphasize the involvement of heteromodal regions of posterior superior temporal sulcus as playing a role in integrative processing. We interpret these findings in a framework of temporally-focused lexical competition in which visual speech information affects auditory processing to increase sensitivity to acoustic information through an early integration mechanism, and a late integration stage that incorporates specific information about a speaker's articulators to constrain the number of possible candidates in a spoken utterance. Ultimately it is words compatible with both auditory and visual information that most strongly determine successful speech perception during everyday listening. Thus, audiovisual speech perception is accomplished through multiple stages of integration

  5. Regulation of speech in multicultural societies

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Maussen, M.; Grillo, R.

    2015-01-01

    This book focuses on the way in which public debate and legal practice intersect when it comes to the value of free speech and the need to regulate "offensive", "blasphemous" or "hate" speech, especially, though not exclusively where such speech is thought to be offensive to members of ethnic and

  6. Mode of foreign entry, technology transfer, and foreign direct investment policy

    OpenAIRE

    Mattoo, Aaditya; Olarreaga, Marcelo; Saggi, Kamal

    2001-01-01

    Foreign direct investment can take place through the direct entry of foreign firms or the acquisition of existing domestic firms. Mattoo, Olarreaga, and Saggi examine the preferences of a foreign firm and the host country government with respect to these two modes of foreign direct investment in the presence of costly technology transfer. The tradeoff between technology transfer and market...

  7. Assessing harmful effects in systematic Reviews

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Woolacott Nerys F

    2004-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Balanced decisions about health care interventions require reliable evidence on harms as well as benefits. Most systematic reviews focus on efficacy and randomised trials, for which the methodology is well established. Methods to systematically review harmful effects are less well developed and there are few sources of guidance for researchers. We present our own recent experience of conducting systematic reviews of harmful effects and make suggestions for future practice and further research. Methods We described and compared the methods used in three systematic reviews. Our evaluation focused on the review question, study designs and quality assessment. Results One review question focused on providing information on specific harmful effects to furnish an economic model, the other two addressed much broader questions. All three reviews included randomised and observational data, although each defined the inclusion criteria differently. Standard methods were used to assess study quality. Various practical problems were encountered in applying the study design inclusion criteria and assessing quality, mainly because of poor study design, inadequate reporting and the limitations of existing tools. All three reviews generated a large volume of work that did not yield much useful information for health care decision makers. The key areas for improvement we identified were focusing the review question and developing methods for quality assessment of studies of harmful effects. Conclusions Systematic reviews of harmful effects are more likely to yield information pertinent to clinical decision-making if they address a focused question. This will enable clear decisions to be made about the type of research to include in the review. The methodology for assessing the quality of harmful effects data in systematic reviews requires further development.

  8. ACOUSTIC SPEECH RECOGNITION FOR MARATHI LANGUAGE USING SPHINX

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aman Ankit

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Speech recognition or speech to text processing, is a process of recognizing human speech by the computer and converting into text. In speech recognition, transcripts are created by taking recordings of speech as audio and their text transcriptions. Speech based applications which include Natural Language Processing (NLP techniques are popular and an active area of research. Input to such applications is in natural language and output is obtained in natural language. Speech recognition mostly revolves around three approaches namely Acoustic phonetic approach, Pattern recognition approach and Artificial intelligence approach. Creation of acoustic model requires a large database of speech and training algorithms. The output of an ASR system is recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers and computerized devices. ASR today finds enormous application in tasks that require human machine interfaces like, voice dialing, and etc. Our key contribution in this paper is to create corpora for Marathi language and explore the use of Sphinx engine for automatic speech recognition

  9. Is Birdsong More Like Speech or Music?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shannon, Robert V

    2016-04-01

    Music and speech share many acoustic cues but not all are equally important. For example, harmonic pitch is essential for music but not for speech. When birds communicate is their song more like speech or music? A new study contrasting pitch and spectral patterns shows that birds perceive their song more like humans perceive speech. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. What do They Know? Guidelines and Knowledge Translation for Foreign Health Sector Workers Following Natural Disasters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dunin-Bell, Ola

    2018-04-01

    Introduction The incidence of natural disasters is increasing worldwide, with countries the least well-equipped to mitigate or manage them suffering the greatest losses. Following natural disasters, ill-prepared foreign responders may become a burden to the affected population, or cause harm to those needing help. Problem The study was performed to determine if international guidelines for foreign workers in the health sector exist, and evidence of their implementation. A structured literature search was used to identify guidelines for foreign health workers (FHWs) responding to natural disasters. Analysis of semi-structured interviews of health sector responders to the 2015 Nepal earthquake was then performed, looking at preparation and field activities. No guidelines were identified to address the appropriate qualifications of, and preparations for, international individuals participating in disaster response in the health sector. Interviews indicated individuals choosing to work with experienced organizations received training prior to disaster deployment and described activities in the field consistent with general humanitarian principles. Participants in an ad hoc team (AHT) did not. In spite of need, there is a lack of published guidelines for potential international health sector responders to natural disasters. Learning about disaster response may occur only after joining a team. Dunin-Bell O . What do they know? Guidelines and knowledge translation for foreign health sector workers following natural disasters. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2018;33(2):139-146.

  11. Effect of "developmental speech and language training through music" on speech production in children with autism spectrum disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lim, Hayoung A

    2010-01-01

    The study compared the effect of music training, speech training and no-training on the verbal production of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Participants were 50 children with ASD, age range 3 to 5 years, who had previously been evaluated on standard tests of language and level of functioning. They were randomly assigned to one of three 3-day conditions. Participants in music training (n = 18) watched a music video containing 6 songs and pictures of the 36 target words; those in speech training (n = 18) watched a speech video containing 6 stories and pictures, and those in the control condition (n = 14) received no treatment. Participants' verbal production including semantics, phonology, pragmatics, and prosody was measured by an experimenter designed verbal production evaluation scale. Results showed that participants in both music and speech training significantly increased their pre to posttest verbal production. Results also indicated that both high and low functioning participants improved their speech production after receiving either music or speech training; however, low functioning participants showed a greater improvement after the music training than the speech training. Children with ASD perceive important linguistic information embedded in music stimuli organized by principles of pattern perception, and produce the functional speech.

  12. First Episode of Self-Harm in Older Age : A Report From the 10-Year Prospective Manchester Self-Harm Project

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Voshaar, Richard C. Oude; Cooper, Jayne; Murphy, Elizabeth; Steeg, Sarah; Kapur, Nay; Purandare, Nitin B.

    Objective: Self-harm is closely related to completed suicide, especially in older age. As empirical research of self-harm in older age is scarce, with no studies confined to first-ever episodes in older age, we examined the clinical characteristics and the risk of repetition in first-ever self-harm

  13. First episode of self-harm in older age: a report from the 10-year prospective Manchester Self-Harm project

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Oude Voshaar, R.C.; Cooper, J.; Murphy, E.; Steeg, S.; Kapur, N.; Purandare, N.B.

    2011-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: Self-harm is closely related to completed suicide, especially in older age. As empirical research of self-harm in older age is scarce, with no studies confined to first-ever episodes in older age, we examined the clinical characteristics and the risk of repetition in first-ever self-harm

  14. Speech networks at rest and in action: interactions between functional brain networks controlling speech production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fuertinger, Stefan

    2015-01-01

    Speech production is one of the most complex human behaviors. Although brain activation during speaking has been well investigated, our understanding of interactions between the brain regions and neural networks remains scarce. We combined seed-based interregional correlation analysis with graph theoretical analysis of functional MRI data during the resting state and sentence production in healthy subjects to investigate the interface and topology of functional networks originating from the key brain regions controlling speech, i.e., the laryngeal/orofacial motor cortex, inferior frontal and superior temporal gyri, supplementary motor area, cingulate cortex, putamen, and thalamus. During both resting and speaking, the interactions between these networks were bilaterally distributed and centered on the sensorimotor brain regions. However, speech production preferentially recruited the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and cerebellum into the large-scale network, suggesting the importance of these regions in facilitation of the transition from the resting state to speaking. Furthermore, the cerebellum (lobule VI) was the most prominent region showing functional influences on speech-network integration and segregation. Although networks were bilaterally distributed, interregional connectivity during speaking was stronger in the left vs. right hemisphere, which may have underlined a more homogeneous overlap between the examined networks in the left hemisphere. Among these, the laryngeal motor cortex (LMC) established a core network that fully overlapped with all other speech-related networks, determining the extent of network interactions. Our data demonstrate complex interactions of large-scale brain networks controlling speech production and point to the critical role of the LMC, IPL, and cerebellum in the formation of speech production network. PMID:25673742

  15. Speech Synthesis Applied to Language Teaching.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sherwood, Bruce

    1981-01-01

    The experimental addition of speech output to computer-based Esperanto lessons using speech synthesized from text is described. Because of Esperanto's phonetic spelling and simple rhythm, it is particularly easy to describe the mechanisms of Esperanto synthesis. Attention is directed to how the text-to-speech conversion is performed and the ways…

  16. The Functional Connectome of Speech Control.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stefan Fuertinger

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available In the past few years, several studies have been directed to understanding the complexity of functional interactions between different brain regions during various human behaviors. Among these, neuroimaging research installed the notion that speech and language require an orchestration of brain regions for comprehension, planning, and integration of a heard sound with a spoken word. However, these studies have been largely limited to mapping the neural correlates of separate speech elements and examining distinct cortical or subcortical circuits involved in different aspects of speech control. As a result, the complexity of the brain network machinery controlling speech and language remained largely unknown. Using graph theoretical analysis of functional MRI (fMRI data in healthy subjects, we quantified the large-scale speech network topology by constructing functional brain networks of increasing hierarchy from the resting state to motor output of meaningless syllables to complex production of real-life speech as well as compared to non-speech-related sequential finger tapping and pure tone discrimination networks. We identified a segregated network of highly connected local neural communities (hubs in the primary sensorimotor and parietal regions, which formed a commonly shared core hub network across the examined conditions, with the left area 4p playing an important role in speech network organization. These sensorimotor core hubs exhibited features of flexible hubs based on their participation in several functional domains across different networks and ability to adaptively switch long-range functional connectivity depending on task content, resulting in a distinct community structure of each examined network. Specifically, compared to other tasks, speech production was characterized by the formation of six distinct neural communities with specialized recruitment of the prefrontal cortex, insula, putamen, and thalamus, which collectively

  17. Private Speech in Ballet

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnston, Dale

    2006-01-01

    Authoritarian teaching practices in ballet inhibit the use of private speech. This paper highlights the critical importance of private speech in the cognitive development of young ballet students, within what is largely a non-verbal art form. It draws upon research by Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky and contemporary socioculturalists, to…

  18. Authority dependence and judgments of utilitarian harm.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piazza, Jared; Sousa, Paulo; Holbrook, Colin

    2013-09-01

    Three studies tested the conditions under which people judge utilitarian harm to be authority dependent (i.e., whether its right or wrongness depends on the ruling of an authority). In Study 1, participants judged the right or wrongness of physical abuse when used as an interrogation method anticipated to yield useful information for preventing future terrorist attacks. The ruling of the military authority towards the harm was manipulated (prohibited vs. prescribed) and found to significantly influence judgments of the right or wrongness of inflicting harm. Study 2 established a boundary condition with regards to the influence of authority, which was eliminated when the utility of the harm was definitely obtained rather than forecasted. Finally, Study 3 replicated the findings of Studies 1-2 in a completely different context-an expert committee's ruling about the harming of chimpanzees for biomedical research. These results are discussed as they inform ongoing debates regarding the role of authority in moderating judgments of complex and simple harm. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  19. Simulator program as a form of implementation of electronic teaching tools for self-study of foreign students at the stage of pre-university training

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andriy O. Savel'ev

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Questions of empowerment the organization of classroom and extracurricular self-study of foreign students at the stage of pre-university training through the implementation of electronic teaching tools as a component of computer training facilities in educational process are considered. Classification of modern electronic teaching tools as a component of computer hardware training, developed on the basis of modern information and communication technologies is offered. Version of program-simulator "Introductory course" is offered. The program is created by means of WEB-programming and uses training material of introductory course. Introductory course is one of the most important elements of teaching of scientific style of speech within the language training for the foreign students at the preparatory faculty.

  20. Speech versus singing: Infants choose happier sounds

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marieve eCorbeil

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Infants prefer speech to non-vocal sounds and to non-human vocalizations, and they prefer happy-sounding speech to neutral speech. They also exhibit an interest in singing, but there is little knowledge of their relative interest in speech and singing. The present study explored infants’ attention to unfamiliar audio samples of speech and singing. In Experiment 1, infants 4-13 months of age were exposed to happy-sounding infant-directed speech versus hummed lullabies by the same woman. They listened significantly longer to the speech, which had considerably greater acoustic variability and expressiveness, than to the lullabies. In Experiment 2, infants of comparable age who heard the lyrics of a Turkish children’s song spoken versus sung in a joyful/happy manner did not exhibit differential listening. Infants in Experiment 3 heard the happily sung lyrics of the Turkish children’s song versus a version that was spoken in an adult-directed or affectively neutral manner. They listened significantly longer to the sung version. Overall, happy voice quality rather than vocal mode (speech or singing was the principal contributor to infant attention, regardless of age.

  1. Foreign Body Retrieval

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... top of page What are the benefits vs. risks? Benefits Removal of a foreign body will reduce ... good tool for guiding foreign body removal procedures. Risks While foreign body removal procedures are safe and ...

  2. Foreign Body Retrieval

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... 80 percent of foreign body ingestions occur among children. Most foreign bodies pass through the gastrointestinal tract ... blockages that may require surgical removal of magnets. Children account for about 80 percent of foreign body ...

  3. Digitized Ethnic Hate Speech: Understanding Effects of Digital Media Hate Speech on Citizen Journalism in Kenya

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stephen Gichuhi Kimotho

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Ethnicity in Kenya permeates all spheres of life. However, it is in politics that ethnicity is most visible. Election time in Kenya often leads to ethnic competition and hatred, often expressed through various media. Ethnic hate speech characterized the 2007 general elections in party rallies and through text messages, emails, posters and leaflets. This resulted in widespread skirmishes that left over 1200 people dead, and many displaced (KNHRC, 2008. In 2013, however, the new battle zone was the war of words on social media platform. More than any other time in Kenyan history, Kenyans poured vitriolic ethnic hate speech through digital media like Facebook, tweeter and blogs. Although scholars have studied the role and effects of the mainstream media like television and radio in proliferating the ethnic hate speech in Kenya (Michael Chege, 2008; Goldstein & Rotich, 2008a; Ismail & Deane, 2008; Jacqueline Klopp & Prisca Kamungi, 2007, little has been done in regard to social media.  This paper investigated the nature of digitized hate speech by: describing the forms of ethnic hate speech on social media in Kenya; the effects of ethnic hate speech on Kenyan’s perception of ethnic entities; ethnic conflict and ethics of citizen journalism. This study adopted a descriptive interpretive design, and utilized Austin’s Speech Act Theory, which explains use of language to achieve desired purposes and direct behaviour (Tarhom & Miracle, 2013. Content published between January and April 2013 from six purposefully identified blogs was analysed. Questionnaires were used to collect data from university students as they form a good sample of Kenyan population, are most active on social media and are drawn from all parts of the country. Qualitative data were analysed using NVIVO 10 software, while responses from the questionnaire were analysed using IBM SPSS version 21. The findings indicated that Facebook and Twitter were the main platforms used to

  4. Speech and nonspeech: What are we talking about?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maas, Edwin

    2017-08-01

    Understanding of the behavioural, cognitive and neural underpinnings of speech production is of interest theoretically, and is important for understanding disorders of speech production and how to assess and treat such disorders in the clinic. This paper addresses two claims about the neuromotor control of speech production: (1) speech is subserved by a distinct, specialised motor control system and (2) speech is holistic and cannot be decomposed into smaller primitives. Both claims have gained traction in recent literature, and are central to a task-dependent model of speech motor control. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate thinking about speech production, its disorders and the clinical implications of these claims. The paper poses several conceptual and empirical challenges for these claims - including the critical importance of defining speech. The emerging conclusion is that a task-dependent model is called into question as its two central claims are founded on ill-defined and inconsistently applied concepts. The paper concludes with discussion of methodological and clinical implications, including the potential utility of diadochokinetic (DDK) tasks in assessment of motor speech disorders and the contraindication of nonspeech oral motor exercises to improve speech function.

  5. Noise-robust speech triage.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bartos, Anthony L; Cipr, Tomas; Nelson, Douglas J; Schwarz, Petr; Banowetz, John; Jerabek, Ladislav

    2018-04-01

    A method is presented in which conventional speech algorithms are applied, with no modifications, to improve their performance in extremely noisy environments. It has been demonstrated that, for eigen-channel algorithms, pre-training multiple speaker identification (SID) models at a lattice of signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) levels and then performing SID using the appropriate SNR dependent model was successful in mitigating noise at all SNR levels. In those tests, it was found that SID performance was optimized when the SNR of the testing and training data were close or identical. In this current effort multiple i-vector algorithms were used, greatly improving both processing throughput and equal error rate classification accuracy. Using identical approaches in the same noisy environment, performance of SID, language identification, gender identification, and diarization were significantly improved. A critical factor in this improvement is speech activity detection (SAD) that performs reliably in extremely noisy environments, where the speech itself is barely audible. To optimize SAD operation at all SNR levels, two algorithms were employed. The first maximized detection probability at low levels (-10 dB ≤ SNR < +10 dB) using just the voiced speech envelope, and the second exploited features extracted from the original speech to improve overall accuracy at higher quality levels (SNR ≥ +10 dB).

  6. Specialization in audiovisual speech perception: a replication study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Eskelund, Kasper; Andersen, Tobias

    Speech perception is audiovisual as evidenced by bimodal integration in the McGurk effect. This integration effect may be specific to speech or be applied to all stimuli in general. To investigate this, Tuomainen et al. (2005) used sine-wave speech, which naïve observers may perceive as non......-speech, but hear as speech once informed of the linguistic origin of the signal. Combinations of sine-wave speech and incongruent video of the talker elicited a McGurk effect only for informed observers. This indicates that the audiovisual integration effect is specific to speech perception. However, observers...... that observers did look near the mouth. We conclude that eye-movements did not influence the results of Tuomainen et al. and that their results thus can be taken as evidence of a speech specific mode of audiovisual integration underlying the McGurk illusion....

  7. Speech and Debate as Civic Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hogan, J. Michael; Kurr, Jeffrey A.; Johnson, Jeremy D.; Bergmaier, Michael J.

    2016-01-01

    In light of the U.S. Senate's designation of March 15, 2016 as "National Speech and Debate Education Day" (S. Res. 398, 2016), it only seems fitting that "Communication Education" devote a special section to the role of speech and debate in civic education. Speech and debate have been at the heart of the communication…

  8. Tuning Neural Phase Entrainment to Speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Falk, Simone; Lanzilotti, Cosima; Schön, Daniele

    2017-08-01

    Musical rhythm positively impacts on subsequent speech processing. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are so far unclear. We investigated whether carryover effects from a preceding musical cue to a speech stimulus result from a continuation of neural phase entrainment to periodicities that are present in both music and speech. Participants listened and memorized French metrical sentences that contained (quasi-)periodic recurrences of accents and syllables. Speech stimuli were preceded by a rhythmically regular or irregular musical cue. Our results show that the presence of a regular cue modulates neural response as estimated by EEG power spectral density, intertrial coherence, and source analyses at critical frequencies during speech processing compared with the irregular condition. Importantly, intertrial coherences for regular cues were indicative of the participants' success in memorizing the subsequent speech stimuli. These findings underscore the highly adaptive nature of neural phase entrainment across fundamentally different auditory stimuli. They also support current models of neural phase entrainment as a tool of predictive timing and attentional selection across cognitive domains.

  9. Speech perception as an active cognitive process

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shannon eHeald

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available One view of speech perception is that acoustic signals are transformed into representations for pattern matching to determine linguistic structure. This process can be taken as a statistical pattern-matching problem, assuming realtively stable linguistic categories are characterized by neural representations related to auditory properties of speech that can be compared to speech input. This kind of pattern matching can be termed a passive process which implies rigidity of processingd with few demands on cognitive processing. An alternative view is that speech recognition, even in early stages, is an active process in which speech analysis is attentionally guided. Note that this does not mean consciously guided but that information-contingent changes in early auditory encoding can occur as a function of context and experience. Active processing assumes that attention, plasticity, and listening goals are important in considering how listeners cope with adverse circumstances that impair hearing by masking noise in the environment or hearing loss. Although theories of speech perception have begun to incorporate some active processing, they seldom treat early speech encoding as plastic and attentionally guided. Recent research has suggested that speech perception is the product of both feedforward and feedback interactions between a number of brain regions that include descending projections perhaps as far downstream as the cochlea. It is important to understand how the ambiguity of the speech signal and constraints of context dynamically determine cognitive resources recruited during perception including focused attention, learning, and working memory. Theories of speech perception need to go beyond the current corticocentric approach in order to account for the intrinsic dynamics of the auditory encoding of speech. In doing so, this may provide new insights into ways in which hearing disorders and loss may be treated either through augementation or

  10. Linguadidactic peculiarities of the new teaching complex of the Russian language for foreigners

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olga V. Shestak

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available The article provides a description of linguamethodic educational complex in Russian for foreigners studying at language courses in the universities of Russia and reached the first level of certification of general proficiency in Russian (B1. The complex consists of a textbook, workbook, containing targets for the grammar, audio and disk videotasks. The authors pay special attention to the methods of training to kinds of speech activity and improve the communicative competence in social and cultural spheres, as well as different techniques of presentation of lexical and grammatical material. Targets set are designed on traditional methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language, and taking into account modern test technologies. The authors used a criterion-oriented tests that are presented in the quest to establish compliance, logical or chronological sequence, as well as jobs of multiple-choice and alternative answers. As part of a school assignment can use a combination of issues related to reading and writing, listening and speaking. The textbook and workbook has available application sheet with keys to tasks. Audio recordings, videos, excerpts from films and photographs used in the performance of tasks are placed on the disk.

  11. Audiovisual Speech Synchrony Measure: Application to Biometrics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gérard Chollet

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Speech is a means of communication which is intrinsically bimodal: the audio signal originates from the dynamics of the articulators. This paper reviews recent works in the field of audiovisual speech, and more specifically techniques developed to measure the level of correspondence between audio and visual speech. It overviews the most common audio and visual speech front-end processing, transformations performed on audio, visual, or joint audiovisual feature spaces, and the actual measure of correspondence between audio and visual speech. Finally, the use of synchrony measure for biometric identity verification based on talking faces is experimented on the BANCA database.

  12. The motor theory of speech perception revisited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Massaro, Dominic W; Chen, Trevor H

    2008-04-01

    Galantucci, Fowler, and Turvey (2006) have claimed that perceiving speech is perceiving gestures and that the motor system is recruited for perceiving speech. We make the counter argument that perceiving speech is not perceiving gestures, that the motor system is not recruitedfor perceiving speech, and that speech perception can be adequately described by a prototypical pattern recognition model, the fuzzy logical model of perception (FLMP). Empirical evidence taken as support for gesture and motor theory is reconsidered in more detail and in the framework of the FLMR Additional theoretical and logical arguments are made to challenge gesture and motor theory.

  13. Commercial speech in crisis: Crisis Pregnancy Center regulations and definitions of commercial speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilbert, Kathryn E

    2013-02-01

    Recent attempts to regulate Crisis Pregnancy Centers, pseudoclinics that surreptitiously aim to dissuade pregnant women from choosing abortion, have confronted the thorny problem of how to define commercial speech. The Supreme Court has offered three potential answers to this definitional quandary. This Note uses the Crisis Pregnancy Center cases to demonstrate that courts should use one of these solutions, the factor-based approach of Bolger v. Youngs Drugs Products Corp., to define commercial speech in the Crisis Pregnancy Center cases and elsewhere. In principle and in application, the Bolger factor-based approach succeeds in structuring commercial speech analysis at the margins of the doctrine.

  14. Self-Harm and Trauma

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Accountability & Whistleblower Protection Transparency Media Room Inside the Media Room Public Affairs News Releases Speeches Videos Publications National Observances Veterans Day Memorial Day Celebrating America's Freedoms Special Events Adaptive Sports Program Creative Arts Festival ...

  15. Neurophysiological influence of musical training on speech perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shahin, Antoine J

    2011-01-01

    Does musical training affect our perception of speech? For example, does learning to play a musical instrument modify the neural circuitry for auditory processing in a way that improves one's ability to perceive speech more clearly in noisy environments? If so, can speech perception in individuals with hearing loss (HL), who struggle in noisy situations, benefit from musical training? While music and speech exhibit some specialization in neural processing, there is evidence suggesting that skills acquired through musical training for specific acoustical processes may transfer to, and thereby improve, speech perception. The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the influence of musical training on speech processing and the extent of this influence remains a rich area to be explored. A prerequisite for such transfer is the facilitation of greater neurophysiological overlap between speech and music processing following musical training. This review first establishes a neurophysiological link between musical training and speech perception, and subsequently provides further hypotheses on the neurophysiological implications of musical training on speech perception in adverse acoustical environments and in individuals with HL.

  16. Auditory Masking Effects on Speech Fluency in Apraxia of Speech and Aphasia: Comparison to Altered Auditory Feedback

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jacks, Adam; Haley, Katarina L.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: To study the effects of masked auditory feedback (MAF) on speech fluency in adults with aphasia and/or apraxia of speech (APH/AOS). We hypothesized that adults with AOS would increase speech fluency when speaking with noise. Altered auditory feedback (AAF; i.e., delayed/frequency-shifted feedback) was included as a control condition not…

  17. LIBERDADE DE EXPRESSÃO E DISCURSO DO ÓDIO NO BRASIL / FREE SPEECH AND HATE SPEECH IN BRAZIL

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nevita Maria Pessoa de Aquino Franca Luna

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this article is to analyze the restriction of free speech when it comes close to hate speech. In this perspective, the aim of this study is to answer the question: what is the understanding adopted by the Brazilian Supreme Court in cases involving the conflict between free speech and hate speech? The methodology combines a bibliographic review on the theoretical assumptions of the research (concept of free speech and hate speech, and understanding of the rights of defense of traditionally discriminated minorities and empirical research (documental and jurisprudential analysis of judged cases of American Court, German Court and Brazilian Court. Firstly, free speech is discussed, defining its meaning, content and purpose. Then, the hate speech is pointed as an inhibitor element of free speech for offending members of traditionally discriminated minorities, who are outnumbered or in a situation of cultural, socioeconomic or political subordination. Subsequently, are discussed some aspects of American (negative freedom and German models (positive freedom, to demonstrate that different cultures adopt different legal solutions. At the end, it is concluded that there is an approximation of the Brazilian understanding with the German doctrine, from the analysis of landmark cases as the publisher Siegfried Ellwanger (2003 and the Samba School Unidos do Viradouro (2008. The Brazilian comprehension, a multicultural country made up of different ethnicities, leads to a new process of defending minorities who, despite of involving the collision of fundamental rights (dignity, equality and freedom, is still restrained by incompatible barriers of a contemporary pluralistic democracy.

  18. Speech production in amplitude-modulated noise

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Macdonald, Ewen N; Raufer, Stefan

    2013-01-01

    The Lombard effect refers to the phenomenon where talkers automatically increase their level of speech in a noisy environment. While many studies have characterized how the Lombard effect influences different measures of speech production (e.g., F0, spectral tilt, etc.), few have investigated...... the consequences of temporally fluctuating noise. In the present study, 20 talkers produced speech in a variety of noise conditions, including both steady-state and amplitude-modulated white noise. While listening to noise over headphones, talkers produced randomly generated five word sentences. Similar...... of noisy environments and will alter their speech accordingly....

  19. Free Speech Yearbook 1980.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kane, Peter E., Ed.

    The 11 articles in this collection deal with theoretical and practical freedom of speech issues. The topics covered are (1) the United States Supreme Court and communication theory; (2) truth, knowledge, and a democratic respect for diversity; (3) denial of freedom of speech in Jock Yablonski's campaign for the presidency of the United Mine…

  20. Facial Speech Gestures: The Relation between Visual Speech Processing, Phonological Awareness, and Developmental Dyslexia in 10-Year-Olds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schaadt, Gesa; Männel, Claudia; van der Meer, Elke; Pannekamp, Ann; Friederici, Angela D.

    2016-01-01

    Successful communication in everyday life crucially involves the processing of auditory and visual components of speech. Viewing our interlocutor and processing visual components of speech facilitates speech processing by triggering auditory processing. Auditory phoneme processing, analyzed by event-related brain potentials (ERP), has been shown…

  1. Speech enhancement on smartphone voice recording

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Atmaja, Bagus Tris; Farid, Mifta Nur; Arifianto, Dhany

    2016-01-01

    Speech enhancement is challenging task in audio signal processing to enhance the quality of targeted speech signal while suppress other noises. In the beginning, the speech enhancement algorithm growth rapidly from spectral subtraction, Wiener filtering, spectral amplitude MMSE estimator to Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF). Smartphone as revolutionary device now is being used in all aspect of life including journalism; personally and professionally. Although many smartphones have two microphones (main and rear) the only main microphone is widely used for voice recording. This is why the NMF algorithm widely used for this purpose of speech enhancement. This paper evaluate speech enhancement on smartphone voice recording by using some algorithms mentioned previously. We also extend the NMF algorithm to Kulback-Leibler NMF with supervised separation. The last algorithm shows improved result compared to others by spectrogram and PESQ score evaluation. (paper)

  2. Hearing speech in music.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ekström, Seth-Reino; Borg, Erik

    2011-01-01

    The masking effect of a piano composition, played at different speeds and in different octaves, on speech-perception thresholds was investigated in 15 normal-hearing and 14 moderately-hearing-impaired subjects. Running speech (just follow conversation, JFC) testing and use of hearing aids increased the everyday validity of the findings. A comparison was made with standard audiometric noises [International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology (ICRA) noise and speech spectrum-filtered noise (SPN)]. All masking sounds, music or noise, were presented at the same equivalent sound level (50 dBA). The results showed a significant effect of piano performance speed and octave (Ptempo had the largest effect; and high octave and slow tempo, the smallest. Music had a lower masking effect than did ICRA noise with two or six speakers at normal vocal effort (Pmusic offers an interesting opportunity for studying masking under realistic conditions, where spectral and temporal features can be varied independently. The results have implications for composing music with vocal parts, designing acoustic environments and creating a balance between speech perception and privacy in social settings.

  3. Speech networks at rest and in action: interactions between functional brain networks controlling speech production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simonyan, Kristina; Fuertinger, Stefan

    2015-04-01

    Speech production is one of the most complex human behaviors. Although brain activation during speaking has been well investigated, our understanding of interactions between the brain regions and neural networks remains scarce. We combined seed-based interregional correlation analysis with graph theoretical analysis of functional MRI data during the resting state and sentence production in healthy subjects to investigate the interface and topology of functional networks originating from the key brain regions controlling speech, i.e., the laryngeal/orofacial motor cortex, inferior frontal and superior temporal gyri, supplementary motor area, cingulate cortex, putamen, and thalamus. During both resting and speaking, the interactions between these networks were bilaterally distributed and centered on the sensorimotor brain regions. However, speech production preferentially recruited the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and cerebellum into the large-scale network, suggesting the importance of these regions in facilitation of the transition from the resting state to speaking. Furthermore, the cerebellum (lobule VI) was the most prominent region showing functional influences on speech-network integration and segregation. Although networks were bilaterally distributed, interregional connectivity during speaking was stronger in the left vs. right hemisphere, which may have underlined a more homogeneous overlap between the examined networks in the left hemisphere. Among these, the laryngeal motor cortex (LMC) established a core network that fully overlapped with all other speech-related networks, determining the extent of network interactions. Our data demonstrate complex interactions of large-scale brain networks controlling speech production and point to the critical role of the LMC, IPL, and cerebellum in the formation of speech production network. Copyright © 2015 the American Physiological Society.

  4. Segmental intelligibility of synthetic speech produced by rule.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Logan, J S; Greene, B G; Pisoni, D B

    1989-08-01

    This paper reports the results of an investigation that employed the modified rhyme test (MRT) to measure the segmental intelligibility of synthetic speech generated automatically by rule. Synthetic speech produced by ten text-to-speech systems was studied and compared to natural speech. A variation of the standard MRT was also used to study the effects of response set size on perceptual confusions. Results indicated that the segmental intelligibility scores formed a continuum. Several systems displayed very high levels of performance that were close to or equal to scores obtained with natural speech; other systems displayed substantially worse performance compared to natural speech. The overall performance of the best system, DECtalk--Paul, was equivalent to the data obtained with natural speech for consonants in syllable-initial position. The findings from this study are discussed in terms of the use of a set of standardized procedures for measuring intelligibility of synthetic speech under controlled laboratory conditions. Recent work investigating the perception of synthetic speech under more severe conditions in which greater demands are made on the listener's processing resources is also considered. The wide range of intelligibility scores obtained in the present study demonstrates important differences in perception and suggests that not all synthetic speech is perceptually equivalent to the listener.

  5. Segmental intelligibility of synthetic speech produced by rule

    Science.gov (United States)

    Logan, John S.; Greene, Beth G.; Pisoni, David B.

    2012-01-01

    This paper reports the results of an investigation that employed the modified rhyme test (MRT) to measure the segmental intelligibility of synthetic speech generated automatically by rule. Synthetic speech produced by ten text-to-speech systems was studied and compared to natural speech. A variation of the standard MRT was also used to study the effects of response set size on perceptual confusions. Results indicated that the segmental intelligibility scores formed a continuum. Several systems displayed very high levels of performance that were close to or equal to scores obtained with natural speech; other systems displayed substantially worse performance compared to natural speech. The overall performance of the best system, DECtalk—Paul, was equivalent to the data obtained with natural speech for consonants in syllable-initial position. The findings from this study are discussed in terms of the use of a set of standardized procedures for measuring intelligibility of synthetic speech under controlled laboratory conditions. Recent work investigating the perception of synthetic speech under more severe conditions in which greater demands are made on the listener’s processing resources is also considered. The wide range of intelligibility scores obtained in the present study demonstrates important differences in perception and suggests that not all synthetic speech is perceptually equivalent to the listener. PMID:2527884

  6. Speech enhancement theory and practice

    CERN Document Server

    Loizou, Philipos C

    2013-01-01

    With the proliferation of mobile devices and hearing devices, including hearing aids and cochlear implants, there is a growing and pressing need to design algorithms that can improve speech intelligibility without sacrificing quality. Responding to this need, Speech Enhancement: Theory and Practice, Second Edition introduces readers to the basic problems of speech enhancement and the various algorithms proposed to solve these problems. Updated and expanded, this second edition of the bestselling textbook broadens its scope to include evaluation measures and enhancement algorithms aimed at impr

  7. Recognizing emotional speech in Persian: a validated database of Persian emotional speech (Persian ESD).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keshtiari, Niloofar; Kuhlmann, Michael; Eslami, Moharram; Klann-Delius, Gisela

    2015-03-01

    Research on emotional speech often requires valid stimuli for assessing perceived emotion through prosody and lexical content. To date, no comprehensive emotional speech database for Persian is officially available. The present article reports the process of designing, compiling, and evaluating a comprehensive emotional speech database for colloquial Persian. The database contains a set of 90 validated novel Persian sentences classified in five basic emotional categories (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness), as well as a neutral category. These sentences were validated in two experiments by a group of 1,126 native Persian speakers. The sentences were articulated by two native Persian speakers (one male, one female) in three conditions: (1) congruent (emotional lexical content articulated in a congruent emotional voice), (2) incongruent (neutral sentences articulated in an emotional voice), and (3) baseline (all emotional and neutral sentences articulated in neutral voice). The speech materials comprise about 470 sentences. The validity of the database was evaluated by a group of 34 native speakers in a perception test. Utterances recognized better than five times chance performance (71.4 %) were regarded as valid portrayals of the target emotions. Acoustic analysis of the valid emotional utterances revealed differences in pitch, intensity, and duration, attributes that may help listeners to correctly classify the intended emotion. The database is designed to be used as a reliable material source (for both text and speech) in future cross-cultural or cross-linguistic studies of emotional speech, and it is available for academic research purposes free of charge. To access the database, please contact the first author.

  8. Imitation and speech: commonalities within Broca's area.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kühn, Simone; Brass, Marcel; Gallinat, Jürgen

    2013-11-01

    The so-called embodiment of communication has attracted considerable interest. Recently a growing number of studies have proposed a link between Broca's area's involvement in action processing and its involvement in speech. The present quantitative meta-analysis set out to test whether neuroimaging studies on imitation and overt speech show overlap within inferior frontal gyrus. By means of activation likelihood estimation (ALE), we investigated concurrence of brain regions activated by object-free hand imitation studies as well as overt speech studies including simple syllable and more complex word production. We found direct overlap between imitation and speech in bilateral pars opercularis (BA 44) within Broca's area. Subtraction analyses revealed no unique localization neither for speech nor for imitation. To verify the potential of ALE subtraction analysis to detect unique involvement within Broca's area, we contrasted the results of a meta-analysis on motor inhibition and imitation and found separable regions involved for imitation. This is the first meta-analysis to compare the neural correlates of imitation and overt speech. The results are in line with the proposed evolutionary roots of speech in imitation.

  9. Design and realisation of an audiovisual speech activity detector

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Van Bree, K.C.

    2006-01-01

    For many speech telecommunication technologies a robust speech activity detector is important. An audio-only speech detector will givefalse positives when the interfering signal is speech or has speech characteristics. The modality video is suitable to solve this problem. In this report the approach

  10. Caring for self-harming patients in general practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rowe, Joanne; Jaye, Chrystal

    2017-12-01

    INTRODUCTION Intentional self-harm is an international public health issue with high personal, social and financial costs to society. Poor relationship dynamics are known to have a negative influence on the psyche of people who self-harm, and this can increase anxiety and decrease self-esteem, both shown to be significant contributors to self-harm behaviours. Positive and functional social supports have been proposed as a cost-effective and constructive approach in diminishing self-harming behaviours. AIM This qualitative study investigated the aspects of professional, social, familial and romantic relationships that people who have self-harmed identified as having a positive and constructive effect on their self-harm behaviour. METHODS Twelve participants with a history of self-harming behaviours were recruited through free press advertising in primary care and interviewed. The participants ranged in age from 19 to 70 years, and represented New Zealand (NZ) European and Māori from across the Southern region of NZ. RESULTS This study shows that constructive relationships that inhibit self-harm behaviours are characterised by participants' perceptions of authenticity in their relationships, and knowing that other people genuinely care. Feeling cared for within an authentic therapeutic relationship enabled participants to overcome their perception of being damaged selves and gave them the skills and confidence to develop functional relationships within their communities. A relationship-centred care approach may be useful for general practitioners seeking to develop more effective therapeutic relationships with patients who deliberately self-harm.

  11. Utility of TMS to understand the neurobiology of speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Takenobu eMurakami

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available According to a traditional view, speech perception and production are processed largely separately in sensory and motor brain areas. Recent psycholinguistic and neuroimaging studies provide novel evidence that the sensory and motor systems dynamically interact in speech processing, by demonstrating that speech perception and imitation share regional brain activations. However, the exact nature and mechanisms of these sensorimotor interactions are not completely understood yet.Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS has often been used in the cognitive neurosciences, including speech research, as a complementary technique to behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Here we provide an up-to-date review focusing on TMS studies that explored speech perception and imitation.Single-pulse TMS of the primary motor cortex (M1 demonstrated a speech specific and somatotopically specific increase of excitability of the M1 lip area during speech perception (listening to speech or lip reading. A paired-coil TMS approach showed increases in effective connectivity from brain regions that are involved in speech processing to the M1 lip area when listening to speech. TMS in virtual lesion mode applied to speech processing areas modulated performance of phonological recognition and imitation of perceived speech.In summary, TMS is an innovative tool to investigate processing of speech perception and imitation. TMS studies have provided strong evidence that the sensory system is critically involved in mapping sensory input onto motor output and that the motor system plays an important role in speech perception.

  12. Self-harm in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mork, Erlend; Mehlum, Lars; Barrett, Elizabeth A; Agartz, Ingrid; Harkavy-Friedman, Jill M; Lorentzen, Steinar; Melle, Ingrid; Andreassen, Ole A; Walby, Fredrik A

    2012-01-01

    This study describes the prevalence, clinical characteristics, and gender profile of self-harm in a cross-sectional sample of 388 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. All patients were interviewed and assessed with respect to lifetime self-harm and relevant clinical variables. An overall of 49% of the patients reported self-harm which was associated with female gender, having had a depressive episode, younger age at psychosis onset, alcohol abuse or dependence, current suicidality, awareness of illness, and low adherence to prescribed medication. Higher awareness of having a mental disorder was associated with self-harm in men only, while emotional dysregulation was associated with self-harm in women only. We conclude that while self-harm in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders is highly prevalent in both genders, risk factors in men and women differ in several important ways.

  13. LinguaTag: an Emotional Speech Analysis Application

    OpenAIRE

    Cullen, Charlie; Vaughan, Brian; Kousidis, Spyros

    2008-01-01

    The analysis of speech, particularly for emotional content, is an open area of current research. Ongoing work has developed an emotional speech corpus for analysis, and defined a vowel stress method by which this analysis may be performed. This paper documents the development of LinguaTag, an open source speech analysis software application which implements this vowel stress emotional speech analysis method developed as part of research into the acoustic and linguistic correlates of emotional...

  14. Correlational Analysis of Speech Intelligibility Tests and Metrics for Speech Transmission

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-12-04

    sounds, are more prone to masking than the high-energy, wide-spectrum vowels. Such contaminated speech is still audible but not clear. Thus, speech...Science; 2012 June 12–14; Kuala Lumpur ( Malaysia ): New York (NY): IEEE; c2012. p. 676–682. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. 47...ARRABITO 1 UNIV OF COLORADO (PDF) K AREHART 1 NASA (PDF) J ALLEN 1 FOOD AND DRUG ADM-DEPT (PDF) OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

  15. Impairments of speech fluency in Lewy body spectrum disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ash, Sharon; McMillan, Corey; Gross, Rachel G; Cook, Philip; Gunawardena, Delani; Morgan, Brianna; Boller, Ashley; Siderowf, Andrew; Grossman, Murray

    2012-03-01

    Few studies have examined connected speech in demented and non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). We assessed the speech production of 35 patients with Lewy body spectrum disorder (LBSD), including non-demented PD patients, patients with PD dementia (PDD), and patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), in a semi-structured narrative speech sample in order to characterize impairments of speech fluency and to determine the factors contributing to reduced speech fluency in these patients. Both demented and non-demented PD patients exhibited reduced speech fluency, characterized by reduced overall speech rate and long pauses between sentences. Reduced speech rate in LBSD correlated with measures of between-utterance pauses, executive functioning, and grammatical comprehension. Regression analyses related non-fluent speech, grammatical difficulty, and executive difficulty to atrophy in frontal brain regions. These findings indicate that multiple factors contribute to slowed speech in LBSD, and this is mediated in part by disease in frontal brain regions. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Cognitive functions in Childhood Apraxia of Speech

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nijland, L.; Terband, H.; Maassen, B.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is diagnosed on the basis of specific speech characteristics, in the absence of problems in hearing, intelligence, and language comprehension. This does not preclude the possibility that children with this speech disorder might demonstrate additional

  17. Subjective Quality Measurement of Speech Its Evaluation, Estimation and Applications

    CERN Document Server

    Kondo, Kazuhiro

    2012-01-01

    It is becoming crucial to accurately estimate and monitor speech quality in various ambient environments to guarantee high quality speech communication. This practical hands-on book shows speech intelligibility measurement methods so that the readers can start measuring or estimating speech intelligibility of their own system. The book also introduces subjective and objective speech quality measures, and describes in detail speech intelligibility measurement methods. It introduces a diagnostic rhyme test which uses rhyming word-pairs, and includes: An investigation into the effect of word familiarity on speech intelligibility. Speech intelligibility measurement of localized speech in virtual 3-D acoustic space using the rhyme test. Estimation of speech intelligibility using objective measures, including the ITU standard PESQ measures, and automatic speech recognizers.

  18. What's the Harm? The Coverage of Ethics and Harm Avoidance in Research Methods Textbooks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dixon, Shane; Quirke, Linda

    2018-01-01

    Methods textbooks play a role in socializing a new generation of researchers about ethical research. How do undergraduate social research methods textbooks portray harm, its prevalence, and ways to mitigate harm to participants? We conducted a content analysis of ethics chapters in the 18 highest-selling undergraduate textbooks used in sociology…

  19. Comparison of two speech privacy measurements, articulation index (AI) and speech privacy noise isolation class (NIC'), in open workplaces

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yoon, Heakyung C.; Loftness, Vivian

    2002-05-01

    Lack of speech privacy has been reported to be the main dissatisfaction among occupants in open workplaces, according to workplace surveys. Two speech privacy measurements, Articulation Index (AI), standardized by the American National Standards Institute in 1969, and Speech Privacy Noise Isolation Class (NIC', Noise Isolation Class Prime), adapted from Noise Isolation Class (NIC) by U. S. General Services Administration (GSA) in 1979, have been claimed as objective tools to measure speech privacy in open offices. To evaluate which of them, normal privacy for AI or satisfied privacy for NIC', is a better tool in terms of speech privacy in a dynamic open office environment, measurements were taken in the field. AIs and NIC's in the different partition heights and workplace configurations have been measured following ASTM E1130 (Standard Test Method for Objective Measurement of Speech Privacy in Open Offices Using Articulation Index) and GSA test PBS-C.1 (Method for the Direct Measurement of Speech-Privacy Potential (SPP) Based on Subjective Judgments) and PBS-C.2 (Public Building Service Standard Method of Test Method for the Sufficient Verification of Speech-Privacy Potential (SPP) Based on Objective Measurements Including Methods for the Rating of Functional Interzone Attenuation and NC-Background), respectively.

  20. SPEECH VISUALIZATION SISTEM AS A BASIS FOR SPEECH TRAINING AND COMMUNICATION AIDS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oliana KRSTEVA

    1997-09-01

    Full Text Available One receives much more information through a visual sense than through a tactile one. However, most visual aids for hearing-impaired persons are not wearable because it is difficult to make them compact and it is not a best way to mask always their vision.Generally it is difficult to get the integrated patterns by a single mathematical transform of signals, such as a Foruier transform. In order to obtain the integrated pattern speech parameters should be carefully extracted by an analysis according as each parameter, and a visual pattern, which can intuitively be understood by anyone, must be synthesized from them. Successful integration of speech parameters will never disturb understanding of individual features, so that the system can be used for speech training and communication.

  1. SUSTAINABILITY IN THE BOWELS OF SPEECHES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jadir Mauro Galvao

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available The theme of sustainability has not yet achieved the feat of make up as an integral part the theoretical medley that brings out our most everyday actions, often visits some of our thoughts and permeates many of our speeches. The big event of 2012, the meeting gathered Rio +20 glances from all corners of the planet around that theme as burning, but we still see forward timidly. Although we have no very clear what the term sustainability closes it does not sound quite strange. Associate with things like ecology, planet, wastes emitted by smokestacks of factories, deforestation, recycling and global warming must be related, but our goal in this article is the least of clarifying the term conceptually and more try to observe as it appears in speeches of such conference. When the competent authorities talk about sustainability relate to what? We intend to investigate the lines and between the lines of these speeches, any assumptions associated with the term. Therefore we will analyze the speech of the People´s Summit, the opening speech of President Dilma and emblematic speech of the President of Uruguay, José Pepe Mujica.

  2. Modeling speech intelligibility in adverse conditions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dau, Torsten

    2012-01-01

    ) in conditions with nonlinearly processed speech. Instead of considering the reduction of the temporal modulation energy as the intelligibility metric, as assumed in the STI, the sEPSM applies the signal-to-noise ratio in the envelope domain (SNRenv). This metric was shown to be the key for predicting...... understanding speech when more than one person is talking, even when reduced audibility has been fully compensated for by a hearing aid. The reasons for these difficulties are not well understood. This presentation highlights recent concepts of the monaural and binaural signal processing strategies employed...... by the normal as well as impaired auditory system. Jørgensen and Dau [(2011). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130, 1475-1487] proposed the speech-based envelope power spectrum model (sEPSM) in an attempt to overcome the limitations of the classical speech transmission index (STI) and speech intelligibility index (SII...

  3. Parent-child interaction in motor speech therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Namasivayam, Aravind Kumar; Jethava, Vibhuti; Pukonen, Margit; Huynh, Anna; Goshulak, Debra; Kroll, Robert; van Lieshout, Pascal

    2018-01-01

    This study measures the reliability and sensitivity of a modified Parent-Child Interaction Observation scale (PCIOs) used to monitor the quality of parent-child interaction. The scale is part of a home-training program employed with direct motor speech intervention for children with speech sound disorders. Eighty-four preschool age children with speech sound disorders were provided either high- (2×/week/10 weeks) or low-intensity (1×/week/10 weeks) motor speech intervention. Clinicians completed the PCIOs at the beginning, middle, and end of treatment. Inter-rater reliability (Kappa scores) was determined by an independent speech-language pathologist who assessed videotaped sessions at the midpoint of the treatment block. Intervention sensitivity of the scale was evaluated using a Friedman test for each item and then followed up with Wilcoxon pairwise comparisons where appropriate. We obtained fair-to-good inter-rater reliability (Kappa = 0.33-0.64) for the PCIOs using only video-based scoring. Child-related items were more strongly influenced by differences in treatment intensity than parent-related items, where a greater number of sessions positively influenced parent learning of treatment skills and child behaviors. The adapted PCIOs is reliable and sensitive to monitor the quality of parent-child interactions in a 10-week block of motor speech intervention with adjunct home therapy. Implications for rehabilitation Parent-centered therapy is considered a cost effective method of speech and language service delivery. However, parent-centered models may be difficult to implement for treatments such as developmental motor speech interventions that require a high degree of skill and training. For children with speech sound disorders and motor speech difficulties, a translated and adapted version of the parent-child observation scale was found to be sufficiently reliable and sensitive to assess changes in the quality of the parent-child interactions during

  4. Speech-enabled Computer-aided Translation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mesa-Lao, Bartolomé

    2014-01-01

    The present study has surveyed post-editor trainees’ views and attitudes before and after the introduction of speech technology as a front end to a computer-aided translation workbench. The aim of the survey was (i) to identify attitudes and perceptions among post-editor trainees before performing...... a post-editing task using automatic speech recognition (ASR); and (ii) to assess the degree to which post-editors’ attitudes and expectations to the use of speech technology changed after actually using it. The survey was based on two questionnaires: the first one administered before the participants...

  5. Comment on "Monkey vocal tracts are speech-ready".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lieberman, Philip

    2017-07-01

    Monkey vocal tracts are capable of producing monkey speech, not the full range of articulate human speech. The evolution of human speech entailed both anatomy and brains. Fitch, de Boer, Mathur, and Ghazanfar in Science Advances claim that "monkey vocal tracts are speech-ready," and conclude that "…the evolution of human speech capabilities required neural change rather than modifications of vocal anatomy." Neither premise is consistent either with the data presented and the conclusions reached by de Boer and Fitch themselves in their own published papers on the role of anatomy in the evolution of human speech or with the body of independent studies published since the 1950s.

  6. Ultra low bit-rate speech coding

    CERN Document Server

    Ramasubramanian, V

    2015-01-01

    "Ultra Low Bit-Rate Speech Coding" focuses on the specialized topic of speech coding at very low bit-rates of 1 Kbits/sec and less, particularly at the lower ends of this range, down to 100 bps. The authors set forth the fundamental results and trends that form the basis for such ultra low bit-rates to be viable and provide a comprehensive overview of various techniques and systems in literature to date, with particular attention to their work in the paradigm of unit-selection based segment quantization. The book is for research students, academic faculty and researchers, and industry practitioners in the areas of speech processing and speech coding.

  7. The Effectiveness of Clear Speech as a Masker

    Science.gov (United States)

    Calandruccio, Lauren; Van Engen, Kristin; Dhar, Sumitrajit; Bradlow, Ann R.

    2010-01-01

    Purpose: It is established that speaking clearly is an effective means of enhancing intelligibility. Because any signal-processing scheme modeled after known acoustic-phonetic features of clear speech will likely affect both target and competing speech, it is important to understand how speech recognition is affected when a competing speech signal…

  8. Speech Motor Development in Childhood Apraxia of Speech : Generating Testable Hypotheses by Neurocomputational Modeling

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Terband, H.; Maassen, B.

    2010-01-01

    Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a highly controversial clinical entity, with respect to both clinical signs and underlying neuromotor deficit. In the current paper, we advocate a modeling approach in which a computational neural model of speech acquisition and production is utilized in order to

  9. Speech motor development in childhood apraxia of speech: generating testable hypotheses by neurocomputational modeling.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Terband, H.R.; Maassen, B.A.M.

    2010-01-01

    Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a highly controversial clinical entity, with respect to both clinical signs and underlying neuromotor deficit. In the current paper, we advocate a modeling approach in which a computational neural model of speech acquisition and production is utilized in order to

  10. Between-Word Simplification Patterns in the Continuous Speech of Children with Speech Sound Disorders

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klein, Harriet B.; Liu-Shea, May

    2009-01-01

    Purpose: This study was designed to identify and describe between-word simplification patterns in the continuous speech of children with speech sound disorders. It was hypothesized that word combinations would reveal phonological changes that were unobserved with single words, possibly accounting for discrepancies between the intelligibility of…

  11. 移动智能语音产业链治理策略研究%Management Strategy on Mobile Intelligent Speech Industrial Chain

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    王忠; 赵惠

    2014-01-01

    智能语音技术将开辟移动智能语音市场,改变用户的生活方式。分析移动智能语音应用现状得出以下发展趋势:语音将成为移动互联网的“入口”,市场将形成寡头竞争格局,初创公司将成为创新的主要动力。国内企业虽有一定技术优势,但综合竞争实力不及国外企业。建议政府以产业联盟整合产业链,以项目合作联合企业研发,以试点工程引导市场发展。%The intelligent speech technology of mobile devices will open up the mobile intelligent speech market and change the life style of the users. Based on the analysis of the applications status of the mobile intelligent speech,the following trends are concluded as follows:the speech will become the "entrance"of the mobile internet;a pattern of oligopolistic competition will appear on the market;the start-up company will become the main driving force of the innovation. Al-though having some technical advantages,the overall competitive strength of domestic enterprises is less than foreign enter-prises. The paper offers suggestions such as guiding and supporting enterprises to carry out research and development of the mobile intelligent speech,improving the ecosystem of mobile intelligent speech industry,and accelerating the applications demonstration.

  12. Effects of Synthetic Speech Output on Requesting and Natural Speech Production in Children with Autism: A Preliminary Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlosser, Ralf W.; Sigafoos, Jeff; Luiselli, James K.; Angermeier, Katie; Harasymowyz, Ulana; Schooley, Katherine; Belfiore, Phil J.

    2007-01-01

    Requesting is often taught as an initial target during augmentative and alternative communication intervention in children with autism. Speech-generating devices are purported to have advantages over non-electronic systems due to their synthetic speech output. On the other hand, it has been argued that speech output, being in the auditory…

  13. Speech auditory brainstem response (speech ABR) characteristics depending on recording conditions, and hearing status: an experimental parametric study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akhoun, Idrick; Moulin, Annie; Jeanvoine, Arnaud; Ménard, Mikael; Buret, François; Vollaire, Christian; Scorretti, Riccardo; Veuillet, Evelyne; Berger-Vachon, Christian; Collet, Lionel; Thai-Van, Hung

    2008-11-15

    Speech elicited auditory brainstem responses (Speech ABR) have been shown to be an objective measurement of speech processing in the brainstem. Given the simultaneous stimulation and recording, and the similarities between the recording and the speech stimulus envelope, there is a great risk of artefactual recordings. This study sought to systematically investigate the source of artefactual contamination in Speech ABR response. In a first part, we measured the sound level thresholds over which artefactual responses were obtained, for different types of transducers and experimental setup parameters. A watermelon model was used to model the human head susceptibility to electromagnetic artefact. It was found that impedances between the electrodes had a great effect on electromagnetic susceptibility and that the most prominent artefact is due to the transducer's electromagnetic leakage. The only artefact-free condition was obtained with insert-earphones shielded in a Faraday cage linked to common ground. In a second part of the study, using the previously defined artefact-free condition, we recorded speech ABR in unilateral deaf subjects and bilateral normal hearing subjects. In an additional control condition, Speech ABR was recorded with the insert-earphones used to deliver the stimulation, unplugged from the ears, so that the subjects did not perceive the stimulus. No responses were obtained from the deaf ear of unilaterally hearing impaired subjects, nor in the insert-out-of-the-ear condition in all the subjects, showing that Speech ABR reflects the functioning of the auditory pathways.

  14. The selective role of premotor cortex in speech perception: a contribution to phoneme judgements but not speech comprehension.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krieger-Redwood, Katya; Gaskell, M Gareth; Lindsay, Shane; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2013-12-01

    Several accounts of speech perception propose that the areas involved in producing language are also involved in perceiving it. In line with this view, neuroimaging studies show activation of premotor cortex (PMC) during phoneme judgment tasks; however, there is debate about whether speech perception necessarily involves motor processes, across all task contexts, or whether the contribution of PMC is restricted to tasks requiring explicit phoneme awareness. Some aspects of speech processing, such as mapping sounds onto meaning, may proceed without the involvement of motor speech areas if PMC specifically contributes to the manipulation and categorical perception of phonemes. We applied TMS to three sites-PMC, posterior superior temporal gyrus, and occipital pole-and for the first time within the TMS literature, directly contrasted two speech perception tasks that required explicit phoneme decisions and mapping of speech sounds onto semantic categories, respectively. TMS to PMC disrupted explicit phonological judgments but not access to meaning for the same speech stimuli. TMS to two further sites confirmed that this pattern was site specific and did not reflect a generic difference in the susceptibility of our experimental tasks to TMS: stimulation of pSTG, a site involved in auditory processing, disrupted performance in both language tasks, whereas stimulation of occipital pole had no effect on performance in either task. These findings demonstrate that, although PMC is important for explicit phonological judgments, crucially, PMC is not necessary for mapping speech onto meanings.

  15. Acquirement and enhancement of remote speech signals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lü, Tao; Guo, Jin; Zhang, He-yong; Yan, Chun-hui; Wang, Can-jin

    2017-07-01

    To address the challenges of non-cooperative and remote acoustic detection, an all-fiber laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) is established. The all-fiber LDV system can offer the advantages of smaller size, lightweight design and robust structure, hence it is a better fit for remote speech detection. In order to improve the performance and the efficiency of LDV for long-range hearing, the speech enhancement technology based on optimally modified log-spectral amplitude (OM-LSA) algorithm is used. The experimental results show that the comprehensible speech signals within the range of 150 m can be obtained by the proposed LDV. The signal-to-noise ratio ( SNR) and mean opinion score ( MOS) of the LDV speech signal can be increased by 100% and 27%, respectively, by using the speech enhancement technology. This all-fiber LDV, which combines the speech enhancement technology, can meet the practical demand in engineering.

  16. Mobile speech and advanced natural language solutions

    CERN Document Server

    Markowitz, Judith

    2013-01-01

    Mobile Speech and Advanced Natural Language Solutions provides a comprehensive and forward-looking treatment of natural speech in the mobile environment. This fourteen-chapter anthology brings together lead scientists from Apple, Google, IBM, AT&T, Yahoo! Research and other companies, along with academicians, technology developers and market analysts.  They analyze the growing markets for mobile speech, new methodological approaches to the study of natural language, empirical research findings on natural language and mobility, and future trends in mobile speech.  Mobile Speech opens with a challenge to the industry to broaden the discussion about speech in mobile environments beyond the smartphone, to consider natural language applications across different domains.   Among the new natural language methods introduced in this book are Sequence Package Analysis, which locates and extracts valuable opinion-related data buried in online postings; microintonation as a way to make TTS truly human-like; and se...

  17. The foreign-language effect: thinking in a foreign tongue reduces decision biases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keysar, Boaz; Hayakawa, Sayuri L; An, Sun Gyu

    2012-06-01

    Would you make the same decisions in a foreign language as you would in your native tongue? It may be intuitive that people would make the same choices regardless of the language they are using, or that the difficulty of using a foreign language would make decisions less systematic. We discovered, however, that the opposite is true: Using a foreign language reduces decision-making biases. Four experiments show that the framing effect disappears when choices are presented in a foreign tongue. Whereas people were risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses when choices were presented in their native tongue, they were not influenced by this framing manipulation in a foreign language. Two additional experiments show that using a foreign language reduces loss aversion, increasing the acceptance of both hypothetical and real bets with positive expected value. We propose that these effects arise because a foreign language provides greater cognitive and emotional distance than a native tongue does.

  18. Monkey Lipsmacking Develops Like the Human Speech Rhythm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morrill, Ryan J.; Paukner, Annika; Ferrari, Pier F.; Ghazanfar, Asif A.

    2012-01-01

    Across all languages studied to date, audiovisual speech exhibits a consistent rhythmic structure. This rhythm is critical to speech perception. Some have suggested that the speech rhythm evolved "de novo" in humans. An alternative account--the one we explored here--is that the rhythm of speech evolved through the modification of rhythmic facial…

  19. Impulsivity and self-harm in adolescence: a systematic review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lockwood, Joanna; Daley, David; Townsend, Ellen; Sayal, Kapil

    2017-04-01

    Research supports an association between impulsivity and self-harm, yet inconsistencies in methodology across studies have complicated understanding of this relationship. This systematic review examines the association between impulsivity and self-harm in community-based adolescents aged 11-25 years and aims to integrate findings according to differing concepts and methods. Electronic searches of EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsychINFO, CINAHL, PubMed and The Cochrane Library, and manual searches of reference lists of relevant reviews identified 4496 articles published up to July 2015, of which 28 met inclusion criteria. Twenty-four of the studies reported an association between broadly specified impulsivity and self-harm. However, findings varied according to the conception and measurement of impulsivity and the precision with which self-harm behaviours were specified. Specifically, lifetime non-suicidal self-injury was most consistently associated with mood-based impulsivity-related traits. However, cognitive facets of impulsivity (relating to difficulties maintaining focus or acting without forethought) differentiated current self-harm from past self-harm. These facets also distinguished those with thoughts of self-harm (ideation) from those who acted on thoughts (enaction). The findings suggested that mood-based impulsivity is related to the initiation of self-harm, while cognitive facets of impulsivity are associated with the maintenance of self-harm. In addition, behavioural impulsivity is most relevant to self-harm under conditions of negative affect. Collectively, the findings indicate that distinct impulsivity facets confer unique risks across the life-course of self-harm. From a clinical perspective, the review suggests that interventions focusing on reducing rash reactivity to emotions or improving self-regulation and decision making may offer most benefit in supporting those who self-harm.

  20. Understanding the Linguistic Characteristics of the Great Speeches

    OpenAIRE

    Mouritzen, Kristian

    2016-01-01

    This dissertation attempts to find the common traits of great speeches. It does so by closely examining the language of some of the most well-known speeches in world. These speeches are presented in the book Speeches that Changed the World (2006) by Simon Sebag Montefiore. The dissertation specifically looks at four variables: The beginnings and endings of the speeches, the use of passive voice, the use of personal pronouns and the difficulty of the language. These four variables are based on...

  1. Speech spectrum envelope modeling

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Vích, Robert; Vondra, Martin

    Vol. 4775, - (2007), s. 129-137 ISSN 0302-9743. [COST Action 2102 International Workshop. Vietri sul Mare, 29.03.2007-31.03.2007] R&D Projects: GA AV ČR(CZ) 1ET301710509 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z20670512 Keywords : speech * speech processing * cepstral analysis Subject RIV: JA - Electronics ; Optoelectronics, Electrical Engineering Impact factor: 0.302, year: 2005

  2. Speech emotion recognition methods: A literature review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Basharirad, Babak; Moradhaseli, Mohammadreza

    2017-10-01

    Recently, attention of the emotional speech signals research has been boosted in human machine interfaces due to availability of high computation capability. There are many systems proposed in the literature to identify the emotional state through speech. Selection of suitable feature sets, design of a proper classifications methods and prepare an appropriate dataset are the main key issues of speech emotion recognition systems. This paper critically analyzed the current available approaches of speech emotion recognition methods based on the three evaluating parameters (feature set, classification of features, accurately usage). In addition, this paper also evaluates the performance and limitations of available methods. Furthermore, it highlights the current promising direction for improvement of speech emotion recognition systems.

  3. Speech neglect: A strange educational blind spot

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harris, Katherine Safford

    2005-09-01

    Speaking is universally acknowledged as an important human talent, yet as a topic of educated common knowledge, it is peculiarly neglected. Partly, this is a consequence of the relatively recent growth of research on speech perception, production, and development, but also a function of the way that information is sliced up by undergraduate colleges. Although the basic acoustic mechanism of vowel production was known to Helmholtz, the ability to view speech production as a physiological event is evolving even now with such techniques as fMRI. Intensive research on speech perception emerged only in the early 1930s as Fletcher and the engineers at Bell Telephone Laboratories developed the transmission of speech over telephone lines. The study of speech development was revolutionized by the papers of Eimas and his colleagues on speech perception in infants in the 1970s. Dissemination of knowledge in these fields is the responsibility of no single academic discipline. It forms a center for two departments, Linguistics, and Speech and Hearing, but in the former, there is a heavy emphasis on other aspects of language than speech and, in the latter, a focus on clinical practice. For psychologists, it is a rather minor component of a very diverse assembly of topics. I will focus on these three fields in proposing possible remedies.

  4. Automatic Speech Recognition from Neural Signals: A Focused Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian Herff

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Speech interfaces have become widely accepted and are nowadays integrated in various real-life applications and devices. They have become a part of our daily life. However, speech interfaces presume the ability to produce intelligible speech, which might be impossible due to either loud environments, bothering bystanders or incapabilities to produce speech (i.e.~patients suffering from locked-in syndrome. For these reasons it would be highly desirable to not speak but to simply envision oneself to say words or sentences. Interfaces based on imagined speech would enable fast and natural communication without the need for audible speech and would give a voice to otherwise mute people.This focused review analyzes the potential of different brain imaging techniques to recognize speech from neural signals by applying Automatic Speech Recognition technology. We argue that modalities based on metabolic processes, such as functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, are less suited for Automatic Speech Recognition from neural signals due to low temporal resolution but are very useful for the investigation of the underlying neural mechanisms involved in speech processes. In contrast, electrophysiologic activity is fast enough to capture speech processes and is therefor better suited for ASR. Our experimental results indicate the potential of these signals for speech recognition from neural data with a focus on invasively measured brain activity (electrocorticography. As a first example of Automatic Speech Recognition techniques used from neural signals, we discuss the emph{Brain-to-text} system.

  5. An evaluation of speech production in two boys with neurodevelopmental disorders who received communication intervention with a speech-generating device.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roche, Laura; Sigafoos, Jeff; Lancioni, Giulio E; O'Reilly, Mark F; Schlosser, Ralf W; Stevens, Michelle; van der Meer, Larah; Achmadi, Donna; Kagohara, Debora; James, Ruth; Carnett, Amarie; Hodis, Flaviu; Green, Vanessa A; Sutherland, Dean; Lang, Russell; Rispoli, Mandy; Machalicek, Wendy; Marschik, Peter B

    2014-11-01

    Children with neurodevelopmental disorders often present with little or no speech. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) aims to promote functional communication using non-speech modes, but it might also influence natural speech production. To investigate this possibility, we provided AAC intervention to two boys with neurodevelopmental disorders and severe communication impairment. Intervention focused on teaching the boys to use a tablet computer-based speech-generating device (SGD) to request preferred stimuli. During SGD intervention, both boys began to utter relevant single words. In an effort to induce more speech, and investigate the relation between SGD availability and natural speech production, the SGD was removed during some requesting opportunities. With intervention, both participants learned to use the SGD to request preferred stimuli. After learning to use the SGD, both participants began to respond more frequently with natural speech when the SGD was removed. The results suggest that a rehabilitation program involving initial SGD intervention, followed by subsequent withdrawal of the SGD, might increase the frequency of natural speech production in some children with neurodevelopmental disorders. This effect could be an example of response generalization. Copyright © 2014 ISDN. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Unenthusiastic Europeans or Affected English: the Impact of Intonation on the Overall Make-up of Speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Smiljana Komar

    2005-06-01

    Full Text Available Attitudes and emotions are expressed by linguistic as well as extra-linguistic features. The linguistic features comprise the lexis, the word-order and the intonation of the utterance. The purpose of this article is to examine the impact of intonation on our perception of speech. I will attempt to show that our expression, as well as our perception and understanding of attitudes and emotions are realized in accordance with the intonation patterns typical of the mother tongue. When listening to non-native speakers using our mother tongue we expect and tolerate errors in pronunciation, grammar and lexis but are quite ignorant and intolerant of non-native intonation patterns. Foreigners often sound unenthusiastic to native English ears. On the basis of the results obtained from an analysis of speech produced by 21 non-native speakers of English, including Slovenes, I will show that the reasons for such an impression of being unenthusiastic stem from different tonality and tonicity rules, as well as from the lack of the fall-rise tone and a very narrow pitch range with no or very few pitch jumps or slumps.

  7. Multistage audiovisual integration of speech: dissociating identification and detection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eskelund, Kasper; Tuomainen, Jyrki; Andersen, Tobias S

    2011-02-01

    Speech perception integrates auditory and visual information. This is evidenced by the McGurk illusion where seeing the talking face influences the auditory phonetic percept and by the audiovisual detection advantage where seeing the talking face influences the detectability of the acoustic speech signal. Here, we show that identification of phonetic content and detection can be dissociated as speech-specific and non-specific audiovisual integration effects. To this end, we employed synthetically modified stimuli, sine wave speech (SWS), which is an impoverished speech signal that only observers informed of its speech-like nature recognize as speech. While the McGurk illusion only occurred for informed observers, the audiovisual detection advantage occurred for naïve observers as well. This finding supports a multistage account of audiovisual integration of speech in which the many attributes of the audiovisual speech signal are integrated by separate integration processes.

  8. Alcohol and self-harm in Anuradhapura

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Jane Brandt; Jayasena, Chandima; Agampodi, Thilini Chanchala

    the personal network of the drinker and lead to secondary traumatization. This can appear as emotional distress, financial difficulties and lead to domestic violence and in some cases self-harm and suicide. This interplay between alcohol and self-harm was investigated in individuals, families and communities...

  9. Developmental profile of speech-language and communicative functions in an individual with the preserved speech variant of Rett syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marschik, Peter B; Vollmann, Ralf; Bartl-Pokorny, Katrin D; Green, Vanessa A; van der Meer, Larah; Wolin, Thomas; Einspieler, Christa

    2014-08-01

    We assessed various aspects of speech-language and communicative functions of an individual with the preserved speech variant of Rett syndrome (RTT) to describe her developmental profile over a period of 11 years. For this study, we incorporated the following data resources and methods to assess speech-language and communicative functions during pre-, peri- and post-regressional development: retrospective video analyses, medical history data, parental checklists and diaries, standardized tests on vocabulary and grammar, spontaneous speech samples and picture stories to elicit narrative competences. Despite achieving speech-language milestones, atypical behaviours were present at all times. We observed a unique developmental speech-language trajectory (including the RTT typical regression) affecting all linguistic and socio-communicative sub-domains in the receptive as well as the expressive modality. Future research should take into consideration a potentially considerable discordance between formal and functional language use by interpreting communicative acts on a more cautionary note.

  10. How did China's foreign exchange reform affect the efficiency of foreign exchange market?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ning, Ye; Wang, Yiming; Su, Chi-wei

    2017-10-01

    This study compares the market efficiency of China's onshore and offshore foreign exchange markets before and after the foreign exchange reform on August 11, 2015. We use the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis of the onshore and offshore RMB/USD spot exchange rate series as basis. We then find that the onshore foreign exchange market before the reform has the lowest market efficiency, which increased after the reform. The offshore foreign exchange market before the reform has the highest market efficiency, which dropped after the reform. This finding implies the increased efficiency of the onshore foreign exchange market and the loss of efficiency in the offshore foreign exchange market. We also find that the offshore foreign exchange market is more efficient than the onshore market and that the gap shrank after the reform. Changes in intervention of the People's Bank of China since the reform is a possible explanation for the changes in the efficiency of the foreign exchange market.

  11. Separating Underdetermined Convolutive Speech Mixtures

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Michael Syskind; Wang, DeLiang; Larsen, Jan

    2006-01-01

    a method for underdetermined blind source separation of convolutive mixtures. The proposed framework is applicable for separation of instantaneous as well as convolutive speech mixtures. It is possible to iteratively extract each speech signal from the mixture by combining blind source separation...

  12. [Prosody, speech input and language acquisition].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jungheim, M; Miller, S; Kühn, D; Ptok, M

    2014-04-01

    In order to acquire language, children require speech input. The prosody of the speech input plays an important role. In most cultures adults modify their code when communicating with children. Compared to normal speech this code differs especially with regard to prosody. For this review a selective literature search in PubMed and Scopus was performed. Prosodic characteristics are a key feature of spoken language. By analysing prosodic features, children gain knowledge about underlying grammatical structures. Child-directed speech (CDS) is modified in a way that meaningful sequences are highlighted acoustically so that important information can be extracted from the continuous speech flow more easily. CDS is said to enhance the representation of linguistic signs. Taking into consideration what has previously been described in the literature regarding the perception of suprasegmentals, CDS seems to be able to support language acquisition due to the correspondence of prosodic and syntactic units. However, no findings have been reported, stating that the linguistically reduced CDS could hinder first language acquisition.

  13. Speech-in-speech perception and executive function involvement.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti

    Full Text Available This present study investigated the link between speech-in-speech perception capacities and four executive function components: response suppression, inhibitory control, switching and working memory. We constructed a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm using a written target word and a spoken prime word, implemented in one of two concurrent auditory sentences (cocktail party situation. The prime and target were semantically related or unrelated. Participants had to perform a lexical decision task on visual target words and simultaneously listen to only one of two pronounced sentences. The attention of the participant was manipulated: The prime was in the pronounced sentence listened to by the participant or in the ignored one. In addition, we evaluate the executive function abilities of participants (switching cost, inhibitory-control cost and response-suppression cost and their working memory span. Correlation analyses were performed between the executive and priming measurements. Our results showed a significant interaction effect between attention and semantic priming. We observed a significant priming effect in the attended but not in the ignored condition. Only priming effects obtained in the ignored condition were significantly correlated with some of the executive measurements. However, no correlation between priming effects and working memory capacity was found. Overall, these results confirm, first, the role of attention for semantic priming effect and, second, the implication of executive functions in speech-in-noise understanding capacities.

  14. Infants' brain responses to speech suggest analysis by synthesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuhl, Patricia K; Ramírez, Rey R; Bosseler, Alexis; Lin, Jo-Fu Lotus; Imada, Toshiaki

    2014-08-05

    Historic theories of speech perception (Motor Theory and Analysis by Synthesis) invoked listeners' knowledge of speech production to explain speech perception. Neuroimaging data show that adult listeners activate motor brain areas during speech perception. In two experiments using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigated motor brain activation, as well as auditory brain activation, during discrimination of native and nonnative syllables in infants at two ages that straddle the developmental transition from language-universal to language-specific speech perception. Adults are also tested in Exp. 1. MEG data revealed that 7-mo-old infants activate auditory (superior temporal) as well as motor brain areas (Broca's area, cerebellum) in response to speech, and equivalently for native and nonnative syllables. However, in 11- and 12-mo-old infants, native speech activates auditory brain areas to a greater degree than nonnative, whereas nonnative speech activates motor brain areas to a greater degree than native speech. This double dissociation in 11- to 12-mo-old infants matches the pattern of results obtained in adult listeners. Our infant data are consistent with Analysis by Synthesis: auditory analysis of speech is coupled with synthesis of the motor plans necessary to produce the speech signal. The findings have implications for: (i) perception-action theories of speech perception, (ii) the impact of "motherese" on early language learning, and (iii) the "social-gating" hypothesis and humans' development of social understanding.

  15. The interpersonal level in English: reported speech

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Keizer, E.

    2009-01-01

    The aim of this article is to describe and classify a number of different forms of English reported speech (or thought), and subsequently to analyze and represent them within the theory of FDG. First, the most prototypical forms of reported speech are discussed (direct and indirect speech);

  16. Cognitive Functions in Childhood Apraxia of Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nijland, Lian; Terband, Hayo; Maassen, Ben

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is diagnosed on the basis of specific speech characteristics, in the absence of problems in hearing, intelligence, and language comprehension. This does not preclude the possibility that children with this speech disorder might demonstrate additional problems. Method: Cognitive functions were investigated…

  17. Age-Related Differences in Speech Rate Perception Do Not Necessarily Entail Age-Related Differences in Speech Rate Use

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heffner, Christopher C.; Newman, Rochelle S.; Dilley, Laura C.; Idsardi, William J.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: A new literature has suggested that speech rate can influence the parsing of words quite strongly in speech. The purpose of this study was to investigate differences between younger adults and older adults in the use of context speech rate in word segmentation, given that older adults perceive timing information differently from younger…

  18. Primary progressive aphasia and apraxia of speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jung, Youngsin; Duffy, Joseph R; Josephs, Keith A

    2013-09-01

    Primary progressive aphasia is a neurodegenerative syndrome characterized by progressive language dysfunction. The majority of primary progressive aphasia cases can be classified into three subtypes: nonfluent/agrammatic, semantic, and logopenic variants. Each variant presents with unique clinical features, and is associated with distinctive underlying pathology and neuroimaging findings. Unlike primary progressive aphasia, apraxia of speech is a disorder that involves inaccurate production of sounds secondary to impaired planning or programming of speech movements. Primary progressive apraxia of speech is a neurodegenerative form of apraxia of speech, and it should be distinguished from primary progressive aphasia given its discrete clinicopathological presentation. Recently, there have been substantial advances in our understanding of these speech and language disorders. The clinical, neuroimaging, and histopathological features of primary progressive aphasia and apraxia of speech are reviewed in this article. The distinctions among these disorders for accurate diagnosis are increasingly important from a prognostic and therapeutic standpoint. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

  19. Optimizing acoustical conditions for speech intelligibility in classrooms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Wonyoung

    High speech intelligibility is imperative in classrooms where verbal communication is critical. However, the optimal acoustical conditions to achieve a high degree of speech intelligibility have previously been investigated with inconsistent results, and practical room-acoustical solutions to optimize the acoustical conditions for speech intelligibility have not been developed. This experimental study validated auralization for speech-intelligibility testing, investigated the optimal reverberation for speech intelligibility for both normal and hearing-impaired listeners using more realistic room-acoustical models, and proposed an optimal sound-control design for speech intelligibility based on the findings. The auralization technique was used to perform subjective speech-intelligibility tests. The validation study, comparing auralization results with those of real classroom speech-intelligibility tests, found that if the room to be auralized is not very absorptive or noisy, speech-intelligibility tests using auralization are valid. The speech-intelligibility tests were done in two different auralized sound fields---approximately diffuse and non-diffuse---using the Modified Rhyme Test and both normal and hearing-impaired listeners. A hybrid room-acoustical prediction program was used throughout the work, and it and a 1/8 scale-model classroom were used to evaluate the effects of ceiling barriers and reflectors. For both subject groups, in approximately diffuse sound fields, when the speech source was closer to the listener than the noise source, the optimal reverberation time was zero. When the noise source was closer to the listener than the speech source, the optimal reverberation time was 0.4 s (with another peak at 0.0 s) with relative output power levels of the speech and noise sources SNS = 5 dB, and 0.8 s with SNS = 0 dB. In non-diffuse sound fields, when the noise source was between the speaker and the listener, the optimal reverberation time was 0.6 s with

  20. Internet Video Telephony Allows Speech Reading by Deaf Individuals and Improves Speech Perception by Cochlear Implant Users

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mantokoudis, Georgios; Dähler, Claudia; Dubach, Patrick; Kompis, Martin; Caversaccio, Marco D.; Senn, Pascal

    2013-01-01

    Objective To analyze speech reading through Internet video calls by profoundly hearing-impaired individuals and cochlear implant (CI) users. Methods Speech reading skills of 14 deaf adults and 21 CI users were assessed using the Hochmair Schulz Moser (HSM) sentence test. We presented video simulations using different video resolutions (1280×720, 640×480, 320×240, 160×120 px), frame rates (30, 20, 10, 7, 5 frames per second (fps)), speech velocities (three different speakers), webcameras (Logitech Pro9000, C600 and C500) and image/sound delays (0–500 ms). All video simulations were presented with and without sound and in two screen sizes. Additionally, scores for live Skype™ video connection and live face-to-face communication were assessed. Results Higher frame rate (>7 fps), higher camera resolution (>640×480 px) and shorter picture/sound delay (<100 ms) were associated with increased speech perception scores. Scores were strongly dependent on the speaker but were not influenced by physical properties of the camera optics or the full screen mode. There is a significant median gain of +8.5%pts (p = 0.009) in speech perception for all 21 CI-users if visual cues are additionally shown. CI users with poor open set speech perception scores (n = 11) showed the greatest benefit under combined audio-visual presentation (median speech perception +11.8%pts, p = 0.032). Conclusion Webcameras have the potential to improve telecommunication of hearing-impaired individuals. PMID:23359119

  1. Internet video telephony allows speech reading by deaf individuals and improves speech perception by cochlear implant users.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Georgios Mantokoudis

    Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: To analyze speech reading through Internet video calls by profoundly hearing-impaired individuals and cochlear implant (CI users. METHODS: Speech reading skills of 14 deaf adults and 21 CI users were assessed using the Hochmair Schulz Moser (HSM sentence test. We presented video simulations using different video resolutions (1280 × 720, 640 × 480, 320 × 240, 160 × 120 px, frame rates (30, 20, 10, 7, 5 frames per second (fps, speech velocities (three different speakers, webcameras (Logitech Pro9000, C600 and C500 and image/sound delays (0-500 ms. All video simulations were presented with and without sound and in two screen sizes. Additionally, scores for live Skype™ video connection and live face-to-face communication were assessed. RESULTS: Higher frame rate (>7 fps, higher camera resolution (>640 × 480 px and shorter picture/sound delay (<100 ms were associated with increased speech perception scores. Scores were strongly dependent on the speaker but were not influenced by physical properties of the camera optics or the full screen mode. There is a significant median gain of +8.5%pts (p = 0.009 in speech perception for all 21 CI-users if visual cues are additionally shown. CI users with poor open set speech perception scores (n = 11 showed the greatest benefit under combined audio-visual presentation (median speech perception +11.8%pts, p = 0.032. CONCLUSION: Webcameras have the potential to improve telecommunication of hearing-impaired individuals.

  2. The benefit obtained from visually displayed text from an automatic speech recognizer during listening to speech presented in noise

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zekveld, A.A.; Kramer, S.E.; Kessens, J.M.; Vlaming, M.S.M.G.; Houtgast, T.

    2008-01-01

    OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the benefit that listeners obtain from visually presented output from an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system during listening to speech in noise. DESIGN: Auditory-alone and audiovisual speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were measured. The SRT

  3. Getting out of (self-) harm's way: A study of factors associated with self-harm among asylum seekers in Australian immigration detention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hedrick, Kyli

    2017-07-01

    The monitoring of self-harm among asylum seekers in Australian immigration detention has not occurred routinely or transparently. Thus whilst concerns regarding rates of self-harm among asylum seekers have been frequently raised, a paucity of systematic information regarding key factors associated with self-harm among asylum seekers exists. The present study was designed therefore to fill a number of gaps in government monitoring by examining the government's own archived self-harm data. Via a descriptive analysis of self-harm incident reports from all operational Australian immigration detention facilities over a 20-month period to May 2011, obtained under Freedom of Information, the present study identified that 959 incidents of self-harm occurred during this period. A gender bias towards men was also found. In addition to this, 10 different methods of self-harm were identified, the four most common being: cutting (47%), attempted hanging (19%), head hitting (12%) and self-poisoning by medication (6%). Seven different precipitating factors for self-harm were also identified, the four most common were: detention conditions (39%), processing arrangements (27%), negative decisions (24%) and family separation (3%). These findings point strongly to the health benefits of considering alternatives to held immigration detention, such as community based processing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd and Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine. All rights reserved.

  4. The Hierarchical Cortical Organization of Human Speech Processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Heer, Wendy A; Huth, Alexander G; Griffiths, Thomas L; Gallant, Jack L; Theunissen, Frédéric E

    2017-07-05

    Speech comprehension requires that the brain extract semantic meaning from the spectral features represented at the cochlea. To investigate this process, we performed an fMRI experiment in which five men and two women passively listened to several hours of natural narrative speech. We then used voxelwise modeling to predict BOLD responses based on three different feature spaces that represent the spectral, articulatory, and semantic properties of speech. The amount of variance explained by each feature space was then assessed using a separate validation dataset. Because some responses might be explained equally well by more than one feature space, we used a variance partitioning analysis to determine the fraction of the variance that was uniquely explained by each feature space. Consistent with previous studies, we found that speech comprehension involves hierarchical representations starting in primary auditory areas and moving laterally on the temporal lobe: spectral features are found in the core of A1, mixtures of spectral and articulatory in STG, mixtures of articulatory and semantic in STS, and semantic in STS and beyond. Our data also show that both hemispheres are equally and actively involved in speech perception and interpretation. Further, responses as early in the auditory hierarchy as in STS are more correlated with semantic than spectral representations. These results illustrate the importance of using natural speech in neurolinguistic research. Our methodology also provides an efficient way to simultaneously test multiple specific hypotheses about the representations of speech without using block designs and segmented or synthetic speech. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT To investigate the processing steps performed by the human brain to transform natural speech sound into meaningful language, we used models based on a hierarchical set of speech features to predict BOLD responses of individual voxels recorded in an fMRI experiment while subjects listened to

  5. Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-01-01

    Inner speech—also known as covert speech or verbal thinking—has been implicated in theories of cognitive development, speech monitoring, executive function, and psychopathology. Despite a growing body of knowledge on its phenomenology, development, and function, approaches to the scientific study of inner speech have remained diffuse and largely unintegrated. This review examines prominent theoretical approaches to inner speech and methodological challenges in its study, before reviewing current evidence on inner speech in children and adults from both typical and atypical populations. We conclude by considering prospects for an integrated cognitive science of inner speech, and present a multicomponent model of the phenomenon informed by developmental, cognitive, and psycholinguistic considerations. Despite its variability among individuals and across the life span, inner speech appears to perform significant functions in human cognition, which in some cases reflect its developmental origins and its sharing of resources with other cognitive processes. PMID:26011789

  6. Multistage audiovisual integration of speech: dissociating identification and detection

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Eskelund, Kasper; Tuomainen, Jyrki; Andersen, Tobias

    2011-01-01

    Speech perception integrates auditory and visual information. This is evidenced by the McGurk illusion where seeing the talking face influences the auditory phonetic percept and by the audiovisual detection advantage where seeing the talking face influences the detectability of the acoustic speech...... signal. Here we show that identification of phonetic content and detection can be dissociated as speech-specific and non-specific audiovisual integration effects. To this end, we employed synthetically modified stimuli, sine wave speech (SWS), which is an impoverished speech signal that only observers...... informed of its speech-like nature recognize as speech. While the McGurk illusion only occurred for informed observers the audiovisual detection advantage occurred for naïve observers as well. This finding supports a multi-stage account of audiovisual integration of speech in which the many attributes...

  7. Treating speech subsystems in childhood apraxia of speech with tactual input: the PROMPT approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dale, Philip S; Hayden, Deborah A

    2013-11-01

    Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT; Hayden, 2004; Hayden, Eigen, Walker, & Olsen, 2010)-a treatment approach for the improvement of speech sound disorders in children-uses tactile-kinesthetic- proprioceptive (TKP) cues to support and shape movements of the oral articulators. No research to date has systematically examined the efficacy of PROMPT for children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Four children (ages 3;6 [years;months] to 4;8), all meeting the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2007) criteria for CAS, were treated using PROMPT. All children received 8 weeks of 2 × per week treatment, including at least 4 weeks of full PROMPT treatment that included TKP cues. During the first 4 weeks, 2 of the 4 children received treatment that included all PROMPT components except TKP cues. This design permitted both between-subjects and within-subjects comparisons to evaluate the effect of TKP cues. Gains in treatment were measured by standardized tests and by criterion-referenced measures based on the production of untreated probe words, reflecting change in speech movements and auditory perceptual accuracy. All 4 children made significant gains during treatment, but measures of motor speech control and untreated word probes provided evidence for more gain when TKP cues were included. PROMPT as a whole appears to be effective for treating children with CAS, and the inclusion of TKP cues appears to facilitate greater effect.

  8. Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, A. Lynn, Ed.; McLeod, Sharynne, Ed.; McCauley, Rebecca J., Ed.

    2010-01-01

    With detailed discussion and invaluable video footage of 23 treatment interventions for speech sound disorders (SSDs) in children, this textbook and DVD set should be part of every speech-language pathologist's professional preparation. Focusing on children with functional or motor-based speech disorders from early childhood through the early…

  9. DEVELOPMENT AND DISORDERS OF SPEECH IN CHILDHOOD.

    Science.gov (United States)

    KARLIN, ISAAC W.; AND OTHERS

    THE GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ABNORMALITIES OF SPEECH IN CHILDHOOD ARE DESCRIBED IN THIS TEXT DESIGNED FOR PEDIATRICIANS, PSYCHOLOGISTS, EDUCATORS, MEDICAL STUDENTS, THERAPISTS, PATHOLOGISTS, AND PARENTS. THE NORMAL DEVELOPMENT OF SPEECH AND LANGUAGE IS DISCUSSED, INCLUDING THEORIES ON THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH IN MAN AND FACTORS INFLUENCING THE NORMAL…

  10. Auditory Modeling for Noisy Speech Recognition

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    2000-01-01

    ... digital filtering for noise cancellation which interfaces to speech recognition software. It uses auditory features in speech recognition training, and provides applications to multilingual spoken language translation...

  11. 76 FR 5387 - Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff; “`Harmful and Potentially Harmful...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-31

    ... of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville... harmful constituents, including smoke constituents, to health in each tobacco product by brand and by quantity in each brand and subbrand.'' The guidance discusses the meaning of the term ``harmful and...

  12. Describing Speech Usage in Daily Activities in Typical Adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, Laine; Baylor, Carolyn R; Eadie, Tanya L; Yorkston, Kathryn M

    2016-01-01

    "Speech usage" refers to what people want or need to do with their speech to meet communication demands in life roles. The purpose of this study was to contribute to validation of the Levels of Speech Usage scale by providing descriptive data from a sample of adults without communication disorders, comparing this scale to a published Occupational Voice Demands scale and examining predictors of speech usage levels. This is a survey design. Adults aged ≥25 years without reported communication disorders were recruited nationally to complete an online questionnaire. The questionnaire included the Levels of Speech Usage scale, questions about relevant occupational and nonoccupational activities (eg, socializing, hobbies, childcare, and so forth), and demographic information. Participants were also categorized according to Koufman and Isaacson occupational voice demands scale. A total of 276 participants completed the questionnaires. People who worked for pay tended to report higher levels of speech usage than those who do not work for pay. Regression analyses showed employment to be the major contributor to speech usage; however, considerable variance left unaccounted for suggests that determinants of speech usage and the relationship between speech usage, employment, and other life activities are not yet fully defined. The Levels of Speech Usage may be a viable instrument to systematically rate speech usage because it captures both occupational and nonoccupational speech demands. These data from a sample of typical adults may provide a reference to help in interpreting the impact of communication disorders on speech usage patterns. Copyright © 2016 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  13. The Apraxia of Speech Rating Scale: a tool for diagnosis and description of apraxia of speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strand, Edythe A; Duffy, Joseph R; Clark, Heather M; Josephs, Keith

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of this report is to describe an initial version of the Apraxia of Speech Rating Scale (ASRS), a scale designed to quantify the presence or absence, relative frequency, and severity of characteristics frequently associated with apraxia of speech (AOS). In this paper we report intra-judge and inter-judge reliability, as well as indices of validity, for the ASRS which was completed for 133 adult participants with a neurodegenerative speech or language disorder, 56 of whom had AOS. The overall inter-judge ICC among three clinicians was 0.94 for the total ASRS score and 0.91 for the number of AOS characteristics identified as present. Intra-judge ICC measures were high, ranging from 0.91 to 0.98. Validity was demonstrated on the basis of strong correlations with independent clinical diagnosis, as well as strong correlations of ASRS scores with independent clinical judgments of AOS severity. Results suggest that the ASRS is a potentially useful tool for documenting the presence and severity of characteristics of AOS. At this point in its development it has good potential for broader clinical use and for better subject description in AOS research. The Apraxia of Speech Rating Scale: A new tool for diagnosis and description of apraxia of speech 1. The reader will be able to explain characteristics of apraxia of speech. 2. The reader will be able to demonstrate use of a rating scale to document the presence and severity of speech characteristics. 3. The reader will be able to explain the reliability and validity of the ASRS. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. The chairman's speech

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Allen, A.M.

    1986-01-01

    The paper contains a transcript of a speech by the chairman of the UKAEA, to mark the publication of the 1985/6 annual report. The topics discussed in the speech include: the Chernobyl accident and its effect on public attitudes to nuclear power, management and disposal of radioactive waste, the operation of UKAEA as a trading fund, and the UKAEA development programmes. The development programmes include work on the following: fast reactor technology, thermal reactors, reactor safety, health and safety aspects of water cooled reactors, the Joint European Torus, and under-lying research. (U.K.)

  15. Visual speech alters the discrimination and identification of non-intact auditory speech in children with hearing loss.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jerger, Susan; Damian, Markus F; McAlpine, Rachel P; Abdi, Hervé

    2017-03-01

    Understanding spoken language is an audiovisual event that depends critically on the ability to discriminate and identify phonemes yet we have little evidence about the role of early auditory experience and visual speech on the development of these fundamental perceptual skills. Objectives of this research were to determine 1) how visual speech influences phoneme discrimination and identification; 2) whether visual speech influences these two processes in a like manner, such that discrimination predicts identification; and 3) how the degree of hearing loss affects this relationship. Such evidence is crucial for developing effective intervention strategies to mitigate the effects of hearing loss on language development. Participants were 58 children with early-onset sensorineural hearing loss (CHL, 53% girls, M = 9;4 yrs) and 58 children with normal hearing (CNH, 53% girls, M = 9;4 yrs). Test items were consonant-vowel (CV) syllables and nonwords with intact visual speech coupled to non-intact auditory speech (excised onsets) as, for example, an intact consonant/rhyme in the visual track (Baa or Baz) coupled to non-intact onset/rhyme in the auditory track (/-B/aa or/-B/az). The items started with an easy-to-speechread/B/or difficult-to-speechread/G/onset and were presented in the auditory (static face) vs. audiovisual (dynamic face) modes. We assessed discrimination for intact vs. non-intact different pairs (e.g., Baa:/-B/aa). We predicted that visual speech would cause the non-intact onset to be perceived as intact and would therefore generate more same-as opposed to different-responses in the audiovisual than auditory mode. We assessed identification by repetition of nonwords with non-intact onsets (e.g.,/-B/az). We predicted that visual speech would cause the non-intact onset to be perceived as intact and would therefore generate more Baz-as opposed to az- responses in the audiovisual than auditory mode. Performance in the audiovisual mode showed more same

  16. Visual Speech Alters the Discrimination and Identification of Non-Intact Auditory Speech in Children with Hearing Loss

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jerger, Susan; Damian, Markus F.; McAlpine, Rachel P.; Abdi, Hervé

    2017-01-01

    Objectives Understanding spoken language is an audiovisual event that depends critically on the ability to discriminate and identify phonemes yet we have little evidence about the role of early auditory experience and visual speech on the development of these fundamental perceptual skills. Objectives of this research were to determine 1) how visual speech influences phoneme discrimination and identification; 2) whether visual speech influences these two processes in a like manner, such that discrimination predicts identification; and 3) how the degree of hearing loss affects this relationship. Such evidence is crucial for developing effective intervention strategies to mitigate the effects of hearing loss on language development. Methods Participants were 58 children with early-onset sensorineural hearing loss (CHL, 53% girls, M = 9;4 yrs) and 58 children with normal hearing (CNH, 53% girls, M = 9;4 yrs). Test items were consonant-vowel (CV) syllables and nonwords with intact visual speech coupled to non-intact auditory speech (excised onsets) as, for example, an intact consonant/rhyme in the visual track (Baa or Baz) coupled to non-intact onset/rhyme in the auditory track (/–B/aa or /–B/az). The items started with an easy-to-speechread /B/ or difficult-to-speechread /G/ onset and were presented in the auditory (static face) vs. audiovisual (dynamic face) modes. We assessed discrimination for intact vs. non-intact different pairs (e.g., Baa:/–B/aa). We predicted that visual speech would cause the non-intact onset to be perceived as intact and would therefore generate more same—as opposed to different—responses in the audiovisual than auditory mode. We assessed identification by repetition of nonwords with non-intact onsets (e.g., /–B/az). We predicted that visual speech would cause the non-intact onset to be perceived as intact and would therefore generate more Baz—as opposed to az— responses in the audiovisual than auditory mode. Results

  17. Spotlight on Speech Codes 2011: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation's Campuses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (NJ1), 2011

    2011-01-01

    Each year, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) conducts a rigorous survey of restrictions on speech at America's colleges and universities. The survey and accompanying report explore the extent to which schools are meeting their legal and moral obligations to uphold students' and faculty members' rights to freedom of speech,…

  18. Spotlight on Speech Codes 2009: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation's Campuses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (NJ1), 2009

    2009-01-01

    Each year, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) conducts a wide, detailed survey of restrictions on speech at America's colleges and universities. The survey and resulting report explore the extent to which schools are meeting their obligations to uphold students' and faculty members' rights to freedom of speech, freedom of…

  19. Spotlight on Speech Codes 2010: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation's Campuses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (NJ1), 2010

    2010-01-01

    Each year, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) conducts a rigorous survey of restrictions on speech at America's colleges and universities. The survey and resulting report explore the extent to which schools are meeting their legal and moral obligations to uphold students' and faculty members' rights to freedom of speech,…

  20. A speech production model including the nasal Cavity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olesen, Morten

    In order to obtain articulatory analysis of speech production the model is improved. the standard model, as used in LPC analysis, to a large extent only models the acoustic properties of speech signal as opposed to articulatory modelling of the speech production. In spite of this the LPC model...... is by far the most widely used model in speech technology....