Thirty children (aged 4-10) and 10 adults repeated 2 target syllables, which were analyzed acoustically to evaluate development of identification and discrimination in children for the vowel duration cue to final consonant voicing. Results showed that category boundary, category separation, response consistency, and perceptual consistency…

This study of 60 young adults found that longer closure durations occurred in initial stop consonants compared with medial stops, and in bilabial stops compared with lingua-alveolar stops. Semi-intelligible hearing-impaired speakers produced stop consonants with longer closure durations than hearing young adults and hearing-impaired young adults…

The relationships between speech parameters and speech intelligibility of 40 severely to profoundly hearing-impaired adults were studied. Regression analysis revealed that speech intelligibility was predicted by a cognate-pair voice-onset-time difference measure and a measure of the stability of the volume-velocity rise time. (Author/JDD)

The longitudinal study compared the speech of two children (beginning at age 3) with cleft palate and inadequate velopharyngeal closure in an attempt to identify the patterns of production observed prior to surgery and the course and rate of change in production following surgery. Subjects' speech samples were evaluated prior to pharyngeal flap…

Drama can act as a bridge between the classroom and the real world in teaching students to communicate in a second language. Teaching techniques using drama to help improve students' pronunciation of English as a second language are described, as they relate to articulation, pitch, volume, rate, and variety. (CB)

Provides an inventory of traditional techniques used in the teaching of pronunciation of English as a second language. Most of the techniques are production-oriented, for their purpose is to improve production of spoken English. (CB)

Spanish-speaking children of Mexican descent living in California were tested on the acquisition of 18 Spanish consonants. The 120 subjects (aged 3 to 5:7 years) were equally divided into eight age groups, and the median ages (50%) and upper age limits (90%) of customary production of each consonant were determined. (Author/JDD)

Intended to introduce instructors to a number of sources for helping students improve their speaking habits in voice and articulation courses or in courses in acting, interpretation, or public address, this annotated bibliography contains 38 entries in two main groupings: (1) texts and instructional materials; and (2) reference sources for…

It is argued that slowed-down speech is a useful tool for teaching both listening comprehension and pronunciation to students of English as a second language. For listening comprehension, introduction of more, and longer pauses at grammatical boundaries allows more time for processing speech. The greater number of accented words and shorter…