Digital Commons Network^™

An Exploratory Study To Examine A Drumming-To-Speech Intervention For Prosody Perception In Preschoolers With Cochlear Implants, Jessica Maclean

Open Access Theses

Children who utilize cochlear implants (CIs) often have trouble detecting and utilizing prosody, an element of spoken language which uses variance in the timing, pitch, and dynamics of speech to communicate meaning beyond semantics. Without a true grasp of prosody, children with CIs can miss conversational elements such as sarcasm and may not communicate effectively with others. Children with CIs match typically-hearing peers in measures of rhythm perception, but fall below their peers in measures of pitch, or melodic, perception. Evidence for behavioral and neural overlaps between prosody and music perception provide rationale for utilizing a drumming intervention to practice …

Prepositional Phrase Attachment Ambiguities In Declarative And Interrogative Contexts: Oral Reading Data, Tyler J. Peckenpaugh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Certain English sentences containing multiple prepositional phrases (e.g., She had planned to cram the paperwork in the drawer into her briefcase) have been reported to be prone to mis-parsing of a kind that is standardly called a “garden path.” The mis-parse stems from the temporary ambiguity of the first prepositional phrase (PP1: in the drawer), which tends to be interpreted initially as the goal argument of the verb cram. If the sentence ended there, that would be correct. But that analysis is overridden when the second prepositional phrase (PP2: into her briefcase) is encountered, since the …

The Interaction Of Domain-Initial Effects With Lexical Stress: Acoustic Data From English, Spanish, And Portuguese, Ricardo F. Napoleão De Souza

Linguistics ETDs

The phonetic implementation of domain-initial boundaries has gained considerable attention in the literature. However, most studies of the phenomenon have investigated small samples of articulatory data in which target syllables were lexically prominent and/or phrasally accented, introducing important potential confounds. This dissertation tackles these issues by examining how domain-initial effects operate on the acoustic properties of fully unstressed word-initial CV syllables in phrasally unaccented words. Similar materials were designed for a reading task in which 14 speakers of English, Spanish and Portuguese, languages that differ in how lexical prominence affects segmental makeup, took part. Results from the acoustic analyses show …

Repeated Reading And Reader’S Theater To Improve Fluency, Trisha Roiger

Culminating Projects in Teacher Development

This starred paper focuses on the effectiveness of using two reading strategies to improve fluency in an elementary student. The two reading strategies are repeated reading and readers theater. Research within the starred paper have effect sizes for both reading strategies in experiments. Readers theater is where a student is working on prosody which is a part of fluency by reading their part in a play on a script. The student is mastering their lines and focusing on expression. Repeated reading is where a student reads a passage at instructional level three times. A cold, warm, and hot read. The …

Analyzing Prosody With Legendre Polynomial Coefficients, Rachel Rakov

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This investigation demonstrates the effectiveness of Legendre polynomial coefficients representing prosodic contours within the context of two different tasks: nativeness classification and sarcasm detection. By making use of accurate representations of prosodic contours to answer fundamental linguistic questions, we contribute significantly to the body of research focused on analyzing prosody in linguistics as well as modeling prosody for machine learning tasks. Using Legendre polynomial coefficient representations of prosodic contours, we answer prosodic questions about differences in prosody between native English speakers and non-native English speakers whose first language is Mandarin. We also learn more about prosodic qualities of sarcastic speech. …

Differences Between The Acoustic Parameters Of Prosody In Speakers With Asd And Typically Developing Speakers Ages Three To Six, Heather Delaune

LSU Master's Theses

The present study was designed to compare the acoustic parameters of prosody of children between the ages of three and six with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD to age matched typically developing (TD) speakers. The acoustic parameters of prosody examined were fundamental frequency (f0), intensity, speech rate, and speech rhythm. Analyzing the acoustic features of atypical expressive prosody in speakers with ASD would provide more detailed and defined information regarding the nature of the prosodic abnormality in these individuals to guide clinicians in providing a more concentrated focus for intervention. Speech samples were obtained from ten English-speaking, monolingual children (5 ASD, …

L2 Learners And The Intelligiblity Of The Bostonian And Californian Accents, Russell Paul Kapryn

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis investigates issues of intelligibility through the lens and focus of prosody when the Bostonian and Los Angeles-based accents are heard in casually occurring conversation by native and non-native speakers. Over the spring and summer of 2017, six native speakers and 11 non-native speakers of English were interviewed from having listened to two 2.5 minute audio sample clips of speakers who have these accents. Respondents were asked questions such as what was difficult or easy or whether they could summarize the recordings for me. Findings indicate that while the native speakers often had difficulty with vocabulary due to context, …

Segmentation And Intonation In Childhood Apraxia Of Speech, Rachel Platt

Master's Theses and Capstones

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder that affects the programming of spatial and temporal parameters for speech patterns, characterized by sound distortions, segmented units, and deficits with lexical stress. CAS has notable increases in the length of time between speech segments and within syllables than do children with phonological impairments or who are developing typically. This segmentation may impact prosody at the lexical level. Prosody also includes declination of the fundamental frequency (F0) and reset at the intonational level, impacting the intelligibility of speech production.

This study assessed segmentation and intonational effects on prosody across an …