Browsing by Subject "Prosody"
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Item An evaluation of a multi-component intervention for loud speech in children with autism spectrum disorder(2016-08) Ormand, Hailey Michelle; Allen, Greg, doctor of clinical psychology; Falcomata, Terry S.; Cawthon, Stephanie W; Keith, Timothy Z; O'Reilly, Mark FIdiosyncratic patterns of speech are common in ASD and greatly affect an individual’s level of functioning, and as a result, the extent of their social and educational inclusion. Although there is a large body of literature detailing and evaluating interventions for a variety of verbal behaviors in ASD, there is a relative dearth of research describing interventions for idiosyncratic characteristics of communicative speech (e.g., atypical prosody) and even less focused specifically on loud speech. To address this gap in the literature, the current study presents and evaluates a treatment package implemented with three children with ASD and a history of loud speech (i.e., ≥ 70 db). A concurrent multiple baselines across participants design was used to determine whether a multi-component intervention (i.e., an antecedent modification, a differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) procedure, and in-vivo feedback) effectively reduced participants’ rates of loud speech. The results suggest it is possible to decrease rates of loud speech in children with ASD to near-zero levels by consistently implementing a relatively simple combination of behavioral strategies. The present study extends the literature on speech prosody in ASD, and fills a gap in the treatment literature by detailing an effective intervention for loud speech. This research could also inform future investigations into this nuanced yet crucial aspect of social communication, including appropriate methods for addressing issues with speech loudness in individuals with ASD.Item Automated Pattern Recognition for Intonation (PRInt) : an essay on intonational phonology and categorization(2012-12) Bacuez, Nicholas; Montreuil, Jean-Pierre; Blyth, Carl; Bullock, Barbara; Erk, Katrin; Smiljanic, RajkaThis dissertation provides experimental evidence for the validity of an intonational phonology. The widely used Autosegmental-Metrical theory con- tends that the phonological structure of intonation can be expressed with two tonal targets (L/H tones and derivatives) and retrieved from its phonetic im- plementations. However, it has not been specifically demonstrated so far in a systematic way. This dissertation argues that this view on intonational phonol- ogy considers the phonetic forms of intonation as instances of phonologically structured intonational units forming functionally discrete categories (tones and derivatives). The model of Pattern Recognition for Intonation (PRInt) applies the concepts of categorization (vagueness, prototype, degrees of typicality) to in- tonation in order to abstract the phonological structure of intonational cate- gories from the ranking, by degree of typicality, of their variations in phonetic implementation. First, instances belonging to an intonation category are collected. Sec- ond, a pattern recognition module, relying on the 4-layer structure protocol, extracts a feature vector from the phonetic data of each instance: a sequence of structurally organized tones (L/H tones and derivatives). Third, a fuzzy classifier, using two functions (frequency and similar- ity), organizes the data from the feature vectors of all instances by degree of typicality (grade of membership of values in multisets) and generates the phonological structure of the intonation category, the prototypical pattern, ex- tracted from all instances, and that subsumes them all. It also re-creates the phonetic implementations of the phonological structure but with their features ranked by degree of typicality. This allows the model to distinguish phono- logically distinct structures from phonetic variations of the same phonological structure. The model successfully extracted the phonological intonation structure associated to three modalities of closed questions in French: neutral, doubt- ful, and surprised. It found that neutral and doubtful closed questions are phonologically distinct while surprise is a phonetic allocontour of the neutral modality, in line with prior characterizations of these patterns. It demon- strated that a bi-tonal phonological structure of intonation can be retrieved from phonetic variations. A versatile modeling tool, PRInt will be developed to use its acquired knowledge to evaluate the categorical status of novel instances and to extract multiple phonological units from mixed corpora.Item An experimental approach to the production and perception of Norwegian tonal accent(2015-05) Kelly, Niamh Eileen; Smiljanic, Rajka, 1967-; Myers, Scott; Crowhurst, Megan; Sussman, Harvey; Kristoffersen, GjertThis dissertation examines the lexical tonal accent contrast of the Trondersk dialect of East Norwegian from the perspective of both production and perception. The goal of the production study was to conduct an in-depth investigation of the tonal accent realization in this understudied dialect, as well as to examine how the lexical accents are impacted by pragmatic focus and sentential intonation. The Trondersk dialect is unusual typologically in that it exhibits a tonal contrast on monosyllabic words. Therefore, the current study examines the contrast on disyllabic and monosyllabic words. Ten speakers were recorded reading target monosyllabic and disyllabic words representing each accent, in noncontrastive and contrastive focus, and also at the right edge of an accent phrase (AP). The goal of the perception study was to determine what cues listeners use to identify the accents. The results of the acoustic analysis revealed that the main correlate of the disyllabic accent distinction in this dialect was in the timing of the F₀ contour, with accent 2 having a later alignment of F₀ landmarks and a higher F₀ minimum than accent 1. In contrastive focus, the accent contrast was found to be enhanced. Accent 1 showed an expanded pitch range and accent 2 an even later alignment of the HL contour compared to noncontrastive focus. When produced at the end of an AP, both accents had a higher F₀ minimum and lower AP boundary tone compared to AP-medial position. The AP-final position also had an influence on segment duration, such that the stressed vowels were shorter and final vowels were longer compared to the AP-medial position. The results of the production experiments thus revealed that contrastive focus and AP-final position both affected pitch cues even though these cues are primarily used to distinguish the lexical pitch contrasts. However, the variation in pitch contour introduced by these factors did not diminish the lexical contrast. In fact, the asymmetrical impact of focus on accent 1 and accent 2 words enhanced the distinction between the two accents. For the monosyllabic contrast, the results revealed that in a noncontrastive focus realization, words with the circumflex accent have a wider HL contour compared to the unmarked accent. In contrastive focus, both accents have a wider pitch range and later low tone alignment. Unlike the effect of contrastive focus on disyllabic words where this increased the timing difference between the accents, the timing of the monosyllabic accents changed in the same direction in contrastive focus. Phonologically long vowels were also lengthened in this condition. Based on the production results, a categorization of stimuli with manipulated pitch contours was conducted. This experiment tested which acoustic cues (height and alignment of F₀ minimum, and alignment of F₀ maximum and turning point from maximum to minimum) are necessary for the perception of the tonal contrast. The results are consistent with the production findings in that changes in all of the examined acoustic cues contributed to the shift in accent categorization. The later timing of the main F₀ landmarks (F₀ maximum, F₀ minimum and turning point from maximum to minimum) induced accent 2 identification. Raising F₀ minimum height also led to more accent 2 responses. The analysis of the perception patterns furthermore revealed that the effect of a later timing of F₀ minimum was weak unless combined with a later timing of the other F₀ landmarks, or a higher F₀ minimum level, all of which contributed to more accent 2 responses. These results indicate that accent 1 is characterized by an early fall, and accent 2 by a salient initial high tone. This comprehensive investigation provided an in-depth description of the monosyllabic and disyllabic accents in this understudied, more conservative dialect that is being replaced by less conservative urban varieties. This contributes to the literature on Scandinavian accentology. Furthermore, this study adds to the literature on the realization of focus in tonal accent languages, and how prosodically marked focus and sentence intonation interact with lexical accents. Finally, this work provides insights into how production and perception constraints shape processing of pitch variation.Item The long line of the Middle English alliterative revival : rhythmically coherent, metrically strict, phonologically English(2012-05) Psonak, Kevin Damien; Cable, Thomas, 1942-; Henkel, Jacqueline M.; Hinrichs, Lars; Lesser, Wayne; King, Robert D.This study contributes to the search for metrical order in the 90,000 extant long lines of the late fourteenth-century Middle English Alliterative Revival. Using the 'Gawain'-poet's 'Patience' and 'Cleanness', it refutes nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars who mistook rhythmic liveliness for metrical disorganization and additionally corrects troubling missteps that scholars have taken over the last five years. 'Chapter One: Tame the "Gabble of Weaker Syllables"' rehearses the traditional, but mistaken view that long lines are barely patterned at all. It explains the widely-accepted methods for determining which syllables are metrically stressed and which are not: Give metrical stress to the syllables that in everyday Middle English were probably accented. 'Chapter Two: An Environment for Demotion in the B-Verse' introduces the relatively stringent metrical template of the b-verse as a foil for the different kind of meter at work in the a-verse. 'Chapter Three: Rhythmic Consistency in the Middle English Alliterative Long Line' examines the structure of the a-verse and considers the viability of verses with more than the normal two beats. An empirical investigation considers whether rhythmic consistency in the long line depends on three-beat a-verses. 'Chapter Four: Dynamic "Unmetre" and the Proscription against Three Sequential Iambs' posits an explanation for the unusual distributions of metrically unstressed syllables in the long line and finds that the 'Gawain'-poet's rhythms avoid the even alternation of beats and offbeats with uncanny precision. 'Chapter Five: Metrical Promotion, Linguistic Promotion, and False Extra-Long Dips' takes the rest of the dissertation as a foundation for explaining rhythmically puzzling a-verses. A-verses that seem to have excessively long sequences of offbeats and other a-verses that infringe on b-verse meter prove amenable to adjustment through metrical promotion. 'Conclusion: Metrical Regions in the Long Line' synthesizes the findings of the previous chapters in a survey of metrical tension in the long line. It additionally articulates the key theme of the dissertation: Contrary to traditional assumptions, Middle English alliterative long lines have variable, instead of consistent, numbers of beats and highly regulated, instead of liberally variable, arrangements of metrically unstressed syllables.Item Misreading English meter : 1400-1514(2012-12) Myklebust, Nicholas; Cable, Thomas, 1942-; Blockley, Mary E; Heinzelman, Kurt O; Scala, Elizabeth D; King, Robert DThis dissertation challenges the standard view that fifteenth-century poets wrote irregular meters in artless imitation of Chaucer. On the contrary, I argue that Chaucer’s followers deliberately misread his meter in order to challenge his authority as a laureate. Rather than reproduce that meter, they reformed it, creating three distinct meters that vied for dominance in the first decades of the fifteenth century. In my analysis of 40,655 decasyllables written by poets other than Chaucer, I show that the fifteenth century was not the metrical wasteland so often depicted by editors and critics but an age of radical experimentation, nuance, and prosodic cunning. In Chapter One I present evidence against the two standard explanations for a fifteenth-century metrical collapse: cultural depression and linguistic instability. Chapter Two outlines an alternative framework to the statistical and linguistic methods that have come to dominate metrical studies. In their place I propose an interdisciplinary approach that combines the two techniques with cognitive science, using a reader-oriented, brain-based model of metrical competence to reframe irregular rhythms as problems that readers solve. Chapter Three applies this framework to Chaucer’s meter to show that the poets who inherited his long line exploited its soft structure in order to build competing meters; in that chapter I also argue that Chaucer did not write in iambic pentameter, as is generally assumed, but in a “footless” decasyllabic line modeled on the Italian endecasillibo. Chapter Four explores metrical reception; by probing scribal responses to Chaucer’s meter we can gain insight into how fifteenth-century readers heard it. Chapters Five through Seven investigate three specific acts of reception by poets: those of John Walton, Thomas Hoccleve, and John Lydgate. I conclude the dissertation by tracing the influence of Hoccleve and Lydgate on the later fifteenth-century poets George Ashby, Osbern Bokenham, and John Metham, and by identifying the eclipse of fifteenth-century meter with the Tudor poets Stephen Hawes and Alexander Barclay, who replaced a misreading of Chaucer’s meter with a misreading of Lydgate’s, inadvertently returning sixteenth-century poets to an alternating decasyllable reminiscent of Chaucer’s own meter.Item A perceptual and experimental phonetic approach to dialect stereotypes : the tonada cordobesa of Argentina(2014-05) Lang-Rigal, Jennifer R; Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline, 1963-This study investigates the perception of vowel lengthening in the tonada cordobesa, a feature of the Spanish spoken in Córdoba, Argentina. Unlike other dialects of Argentine Spanish, lengthening occurs in the pre-tonic syllable (Fontanella de Weinberg 1971; Yorio 1973; Lang 2010) and is believed to be accompanied by a pitch peak (Fontanella de Weinberg 1971). The goals of this dissertation are to determine if duration alone (i.e., without intonational changes) is significant in identifying a speaker’s Cordoba provenance, and to discover what listener features affect perception. A matched-guise methodology presents speech tokens with natural and manipulated pre-tonic vowel durations to Argentine listeners in a dialect identification task. Results show a main effect of speaker region and token type (natural versus manipulated). Shorter durations made Córdoba speakers difficult to identify, reducing accuracy from 59% for natural tokens to 28% for manipulated tokens with shortened pre-tonic syllables. Buenos Aires speakers received the highest identification accuracy for natural tokens (80%) and Tucumán speakers the lowest (43%). Longer pre-tonic vowel durations are associated with a Córdoba identity, regardless of speaker origin and other linguistic cues. Control tokens produced by speakers from Buenos Aires and Tucumán confirmed this effect: these tokens, when manipulated to have a longer pre-tonic vowel, induced the perception of a Córdoba identity. Listener experience is also shown to improve accuracy of dialect identification: listeners of more geographically distant provinces, relative to the speaker’s province of origin, present significantly reduced identification rates. Acoustical analyses of the Cordoba samples confirm pre-tonic lengthening as well as an early peak rise within the stressed syllable, and valley alignment before the onset of this syllable. Pre-tonic, tonic and post-tonic syllable durations are lengthened, resulting in a segmentally unbalanced intonational phrase for which prominence is disproportionately concentrated in these final segments. The durational, intonational, and rhythmic properties make the Cordoba dialect unique among regional lects within Argentina and across the Spanish-speaking world. This research contributes experimental evidence for the prosodic features marking this dialect and supports its saliency and social significance within Argentina.Item Phonological changes in syllable duration and filler syllables in early child language(Texas Tech University, 2005-05) Winchester, Kimberly Sue; Aoyama, KatsuraThis study investigated the development of prosody in American English and its relationship to segmental phonology and morphology with a focus on the acquisition of stress patterns. The data were collected from a male child by his father from 1;4 to 4;4 biweekly. Of these, twelve data points between 18 and 23 months were analyzed (approximately 30 minutes each). All utterances were coded into one of the following categories using transcriptions, notes, and audio data: Monosyllabic, Filler plus Monosyllabic, Disyllabic, Filler plus Disyllabic, Multisyllabic, and Filler plus Multisyllabic. The total number of utterances and syllables per utterance increased from 18 to 23 months. At 18 months, only 35% (84/236) of the child’s utterances were multisyllabic, while 72% (612/851) such utterances were produced at 23 months. At 18 months, 20% of the utterances (48/236) contained filler syllables. Between 21_2 and 22_0 months, the number of filler syllables decreased suddenly. At 22 and 23 months, the child produced filler syllables again, but this time with disyllabic and multisyllabic words. The disyllables were coded into one of the following: trochaic, iambic, or evenly stressed, then acoustic analysis was conducted on duration of those disyllables. A total of 160 utterances were measured. The results indicate that the second syllable was in general longer than the first syllable and the difference between first and second syllables was not significant at 21 months, whereas it was significant at 18 and 23 months.Item Phonological changes in syllable duration and filler syllables in early child language(2005-05) Winchester, Kimberly Sue; Aoyama, Katsura; Paschall, Dwayne; Sancibrian, Sherry; Schmitt, Mary BethThis study investigated the development of prosody in American English and its relationship to segmental phonology and morphology with a focus on the acquisition of stress patterns. The data were collected from a male child by his father from 1;4 to 4;4 biweekly. Of these, twelve data points between 18 and 23 months were analyzed (approximately 30 minutes each). All utterances were coded into one of the following categories using transcriptions, notes, and audio data: Monosyllabic, Filler plus Monosyllabic, Disyllabic, Filler plus Disyllabic, Multisyllabic, and Filler plus Multisyllabic. The total number of utterances and syllables per utterance increased from 18 to 23 months. At 18 months, only 35% (84/236) of the child’s utterances were multisyllabic, while 72% (612/851) such utterances were produced at 23 months. At 18 months, 20% of the utterances (48/236) contained filler syllables. Between 21_2 and 22_0 months, the number of filler syllables decreased suddenly. At 22 and 23 months, the child produced filler syllables again, but this time with disyllabic and multisyllabic words. The disyllables were coded into one of the following: trochaic, iambic, or evenly stressed, then acoustic analysis was conducted on duration of those disyllables. A total of 160 utterances were measured. The results indicate that the second syllable was in general longer than the first syllable and the difference between first and second syllables was not significant at 21 months, whereas it was significant at 18 and 23 months. These findings suggested that 21 months was an important milestone in language development for this child. At 21 months, the number of filler syllables decreased and the duration of syllables showed a different pattern from 18 and 23 months. These data suggested that there may have been a change in this child’s phonology at 21 months.Item Speech and prosody characteristics of children with autism spectrum disorders(2015-05) Reyna, Samantha Nicole; Davis, Barbara L. (Barbara Lockett); Franco, Jessica HThe objective of this study was to examine if segmental and prosodic patterns of young children with autism differ from typically developing peers. We compared 4 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to their developmentally-age matched peers. ASD participants in this study did not demonstrate segmental deficit patterns as much as language delays. Excessive, misplaced, and reduced stress and slowed articulation rate in utterances were the two greatest prosodic deficits ASD participants in this study demonstrated. These prosodic deficits, or delays, were quantitatively assessed, and seemed to be the qualitative characteristics often associated with ASD children in previous research. Our findings suggest that early intervention approaches for prosodic differences could be beneficial for children with ASD and their families with a concise, standardized diagnostic tool to assess prosodic differences more accurately.Item Suprasegmental features and their classroom application in pronunciation instruction(2012-12) Childs, Jacob Auburn; Sardegna, Veronica G.; Horwitz, ElaineThis Report examines the importance of suprasegmentals and how one might teach them. I demonstrate, through the readings of experts in the field, the close relationship between suprasegmental features and intelligibility, which I support with a review of research literature as the goal of instruction. Pronunciation and suprasegmental research in pedagogy is analyzed and discussed, and teacher and learner beliefs are compared with current research-backed conclusions. Finally, this Report provides the readers with sample lessons on nuclear stress to demonstrate how to incorporate a five-step pronunciation framework into a classroom or tutoring setting.