This study explores the use of F0, intensity and duration in the production of two types of prominences in French: primary accent with duration as the main acoustic cue, and secondary accent with F0 and intensity as acoustic cues. These parameters were studied in 13 children using a cochlear implant (CI) and 17 children with a normal hearing (NH),…

Infants as young as 2 months can integrate audio and visual aspects of speech articulation. A shift of attention from the eyes towards the mouth of talking faces occurs around 6 months of age in monolingual infants. However, it is unknown whether this pattern of attention during audiovisual speech processing is influenced by speech and language…

This study addressed two areas of inquiry: 1) the influence of enlisting three underlying cognitive learning processes (CLPs) in alphabet learning, and 2) order effects for letter name and letter sound instruction. Alphabet instruction was designed to enlist Paired Associate Learning (PAL) only, PAL plus Orthographic Learning (OL), or PAL plus…

This study explores the hypothesis that the existence of a short sensitive period for lower-level speech perception/articulation skills, and a long one for higher-level language skills, may partly explain the language outcomes of children with cochlear implants (CIs). The participants were fourteen children fitted with a CI before their second…

Purpose: The study investigates whether auditory information affects the nature of intrusion and reduction errors in reiterated speech. These errors are hypothesized to arise as a consequence of autonomous mechanisms to stabilize movement coordination. The specific question addressed is whether this process is affected by auditory information so…

This paper briefly investigates the vowel sounds of English and Bangla language. Keeping the supra-segmental features aside, it mainly focuses on the major segmental similarities and differences of the vowel sound system of these two languages. The paper explores the articulatory system in brief and reviews the vowels sounds of English. An effort…

This study examined the relationship between oral fluency and use of multiword sequences (MWSs) across four proficiency levels (Low B1 to C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference). Data came from 56 learners taking the speaking test of the Test of English for Educational Purposes, and our analysis obtained different measures of fluency…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate how deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the caudal zona incerta (cZi) affects speech intelligibility in persons with essential tremor. Method: Thirty-five participants were evaluated: off stimulation, on chronic stimulation optimized to alleviate tremor, and during unilateral stimulation at increasing…

As part of a research project on the investigation of second language (L2) ultimate attainment in 41 Spanish early and late near-native speakers of L2 Swedish, the present study reports on voice onset time (VOT) analyses of the production of Swedish word-initial voiceless stops, /p t k/. Voice onset time is analyzed in milliseconds as well as in…

The present study aimed at investigating whether L2 learning affects phonological short-term and working memory and first language (L1) development. The performance of a group of 31 4- to-5-year-old sequential bilinguals attending an International School on tasks assessing phonological short-term and working memory and linguistic performance in L1…

Research on second-language (L2) speech acquisition suggests that audio-visual aids could be effective in helping learners acquire difficult L2 speech sounds (Li, 2016a). However, most previous studies have been restricted to laboratory settings rather than the classroom environment. The present study, therefore, was designed to fill this…

A fundamental issue in speech science concerns the extent to which speech sounds are mentally represented by articulatory-motor and/or auditory-acoustic features. This dissertation aims to expand upon the current literature by investigating changes in production and perception following visual feedback training with either articulatory or acoustic…

We can gain a better understanding of short-term memory processes by studying different language codes and modalities. Three experiments were conducted to investigate: (a) Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL) digit spans in Chinese/TSL hearing bilinguals (n = 32); (b) American Sign Language (ASL) digit spans in English/ASL hearing bilinguals (n = 15);…

Purpose: The authors investigated how different variants of clear speech affect segmental and suprasegmental acoustic measures of speech in speakers with Parkinson's disease and a healthy control group. Method: A total of 14 participants with Parkinson's disease and 14 control participants served as speakers. Each speaker produced 18 different…

Palatalization refers to a type of coarticulation in which the place of articulation of some sound is closer to the palate than otherwise expected, very often triggered by adjacent palatal segments. It has been known as one of the most dynamic phonological phenomena in phonetic and phonological research, but the articulatory nature of…