Speech and Hearing Science Commons^™

Visual Speech Training Aid For The Deaf, Subhashri Venkat

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A computer-based vowel articulation training aid has been developed. A "continuous" acoustic-phonetic transformation is performed to map speech parameters to a lower dimensionality display space. There are two possible approaches to this transformation problem. The transformation could be either linear or a combination nonlinear/linear. The nonlinear transformation is performed using a multi-layered feedforward neural network with linear output layers. Speech parameters are extracted either from an analog filter bank arrangement (band energies) or by a digital signal processing procedure (Discrete Cosine Transform Coefficients). The speech parameters obtained from both methods correspond to the spectral envelope of the speech signals. The …

Pragmatic Conversational Skills Of Children Identified As Emotionally Disturbed, Deidre Winder

Dissertations and Theses

Communication refers to the conveyance of intended messages so that the listeners' attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors are changed. Communication through a language system may be thought of as the integration of the three components of content (semantics), form (syntax), and use (language in context or pragmatics). The corning together of content, form, and use in signs, words, phrases, and discourse is the essence of language development. The synergism of content/form/use makes up language competence, or knowledge. When children speak and understand a message, they have a plan that is knowledge of language and they use that plan for the behavior …

Types Of Phonological Processes Occurring In Normal Black English Speakers, Eileen Rella

Dissertations and Theses

Black English (BE) is a rule-governed linguistic system with its own phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. BE is a dialect, not a disordered variation of standard English (SE). When compared to SE, BE phonology has been described in terms of omissions, substitutions, and additions. This study looked at normal BE speakers in Portland, Oregon and described their dialectal differences in terms of phonological processes.

Effects Of Certain Linguistic Parameters Upon The Responses Of Preschool Subjects To Specific Dichotic Listening Tasks, Peggy J. Weber

Dissertations and Theses

Listening, as a communication skill, is an essential factor in the normal language development of the' child. Until recently, however, there has been very little research conducted concerning the linguistic parameters that influence the ability to listen. Thus, this investigation was designed to study the effects of two linguistic parameters, construction and semantic constraints on the verbal responses of preschool children in a dichotic listening task.

Fifteen children, between the ages of 5-3 to 6-8, were presented with four dichotic listening tasks consisting of 80 stimuli, (40 sentences and 40 pseudo-sentences). The children were asked to report the message delivered …