The study shows that there are two distinct lateral phonemes in Turkish with a minimal pair example. 20 male native speakers of Turkish, aged 20-26, were asked to read six short phrases and a minimal pair which contained laterals. The spectrograms were examined by PRAAT to determine whether it is possible to identify the laterals with regard to…

Purpose: Real-time magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and accompanying analytical methods are shown to capture and quantify salient aspects of apraxic speech, substantiating and expanding upon evidence provided by clinical observation and acoustic and kinematic data. Analysis of apraxic speech errors within a dynamic systems framework is provided…

Previous research has argued that fundamental frequency is a critical component of phonetic accommodation. We tested this hypothesis in an auditory naming task with two conditions. Participants in an Unfiltered Condition completed an auditory naming task with a single male model talker. A second group of participants was assigned to a Filtered…

Phonation is a fundamental feature of human communication. Control of phonation in the context of speech-language disturbances has traditionally been considered a characteristic of lesions to subcortical structures and pathways. Evidence suggests however, that cortical lesions may also implicate phonation. We carried out acoustic and perceptual…

Purpose: This study explored relationships among perceptual, ultrasound, and acoustic measurements of children's correct and misarticulated /r/ sounds. Longitudinal data documenting changes across these parameters were collected from 2 children who acquired /r/ over a period of intervention and were compared with data from children with typical…

The core objective of this study was to examine whether acoustic variability of vowel production in American English, across speaking tasks, is systematic. Ten male speakers who spoke a relatively homogeneous Wisconsin dialect produced eight monophthong vowels (in hVd and CVC contexts) in four speaking tasks, including clear-speech, citation form,…

According to one approach to speech perception, listeners perceive speech by applying general pattern matching mechanisms to the acoustic signal (e.g., Diehl, Lotto, & Holt, 2004). An alternative is that listeners perceive the phonetic gestures that structured the acoustic signal (e.g., Fowler, 1986). The two accounts have offered different…

The purpose of this study was to use acoustic analyses to describe speech outcomes over the course of 1 year after radial forearm free flap (RFFF) reconstruction of the tongue. Eighteen Canadian English-speaking females and males with reconstruction for oral cancer had speech samples recorded (pre-operative, and 1 month, 6 months, and 1 year…

This perceptual study describes changes in how listeners perceive VCV elements within successive truncations taken from an iambic phrase containing l (e.g. "a leaf", or "a load") spoken by four male speakers of General American English. Evidence of the respective roles of dorsal gestural affiliation between l and the reduced…

Purpose: To compare the perceived articulation rate of boys with fragile X syndrome (FXS) with that of chronologically age-matched (CA) boys and to determine segmental and/or prosodic factors that account for perceived rate. Method: Ten listeners used direct magnitude estimation procedures to judge the articulation rates of 7 boys with FXS only, 5…

Purpose: This study examined the response of the respiratory system to 3 cues used to elicit increased vocal loudness to determine whether the effects of cueing, shown previously in sentence tasks, were present in connected speech tasks and to describe differences among tasks. Method: Fifteen young men and 15 young women produced a 2-paragraph…

Results are presented from an auditory and acoustic analysis of the speech of an adult male with impaired prosody and articulation due to brain haemorrhage. They show marked effects on phonation, speech rate and articulator velocity, and a speech rhythm disrupted by "intrusive" stresses. These effects are discussed in relation to the speaker's…

Purpose: Increased speaking rate is a commonly reported perceptual characteristic among males with fragile X syndrome (FXS). The objective of this preliminary study was to determine articulation rate--one component of perceived speaking rate--and vowel space characteristics of young males with FXS. Method: Young males with FXS (n = 38), …

Common perceptual characteristics of the elderly voice include hoarseness, breathiness, instability, and a change in the pitch of the voice. Although research is available concerning changes in the elderly voice, little research has been completed to examine the relationship between the perception of voice quality and acoustic measures. The…