Audio Scripts Research Articles

Weakness of Fluency in Speech Production Made by Iraqi College Students of English

Based on their investigation, the current research examines the disfluency in speech production produced by Iraqi students at the Department of English - Open Educational College- Fallujah Study Center. The aims of this study are to identify the various kinds of disfluency, as well as the prevalent kinds and similarities and differences between the students' disfluencies. This kind of study is qualitative. The research utilizes disfluent utterances from students in the third and fourth stages as its data source.The researcher gathers data by attentively listening to the audio recording, writing the audio scripts, administering a questionnaire, identifying the data, and choosing the data that deals with various kinds of deficiency. The disfluencies are analyzed by the researcher using the theories of Fox Tree, Levelt, Shriberg, and Clark and Wasow. The findings show that students make three different kinds of disfluencies that were produced by students in the English Department at OEC, overt repair, hesitation, and repetition.The duration of study done by third and fourth-year students is used to analyze them. Hesitancy is the most prevalent type of disfluency that students experience most learners have. The overall number of disfluencies produced by learners in the third and fourth stages then makes a difference. First, the researcher identified commonalities between the three forms of disfluencies: overt repair, hesitation, and repetition. Second, student's hesitancy is the most common form of disfluency.

The Application of Audio Scripts for Micro Learning Meaning and Purpose in Enhancing Students' Learning Creativity

The rapid development of technology has an impact on the rapid exchange of information, including in the world of education. Providing provisions for creativity is needed as an effort to prepare graduate students to face rapid changes. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of the application of audio script micro learning meaning and purpose to improve student creativity. This research is an experimental research with a quantitative approach. This study used a pre-experimental design with one class of research samples. Hypothesis testing in this study used a one sample t-test to test the effectiveness of the application of the audio script for micro-learning the meaning and purpose of effective in increasing student learning creativity. The application of audio scripts in micro-learning courses has a positive impact on student creativity as evidenced by an increase in student creativity by 11.2. The increase in student creativity is reinforced by the results of the one samples t test on student creativity data showing a significance value of 0.00, which means that audio script media can improve student creativity skills. Therefore, in this study it can be concluded that the application of audio scripts of micro learning meaning and purpose is effective in increasing student learning creativity.

ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF AUDIO-VISUAL SCRIPT EXPOSURE IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION LESSONS

Pre-listening activities have been proven to be efficient for enhancing learners' English listening abilities. Nevertheless, there has been insufficient attention given to the impact of showing students audio scripts during while-listening stage on their performance and attitudes. To be specific, that students can see audio scripts is regarded as a highly effective instructional tool for enhancing their English listening comprehension skills because it allows them to clearly perceive and comprehend the listening content, as well as boosts their eagerness to acquire English language skills. The objectives of this study are first to gain some insight into the difficulties faced by 80 English-majored students at Dong Nai Technology University when it comes to listening comprehension. Accordingly, it examines their perspectives on the exposure of audio scripts at the stage of while listening. Questionnaires and interviews were employed as tools for gathering essential data. According to the questionnaires, students had significant listening challenges throughout stages of a lesson including lack of vocabulary, pronunciation skills, background knowledge, memorization, concentration, ability to process the information in a short time. Furthermore, the interviews revealed that the display of audio scripts not only improves but also motivates students in their learning journey. In short, the students found the application of audiovisual scripts as a facilitator in an English listening comprehension lesson.

Hearing the Difference: Theoretical and Practical Insights into Audio Script Usage in Language Testing for College Students

This article discusses audio scripts' complex role in language evaluation, providing theoretical and practical frameworks. It begins by tracing the evolution of hearing tests from simple listening exercises to complicated exams with multi-layered audio scripts. The study examines cognitive processing theories and audio script-based communicative language education methods for listening comprehension. Much of the research examines how audio scripts are used in language tests. This involves script creation, focusing on how authenticity and comprehensibility affect test performance and evaluation reliability. Teachers and test designers need help to provide compelling, real-world language-use audio resources. This paper addresses these issues. The study also investigates technological and pedagogical developments that affect audio script creation and consumption. Artificial intelligence and reputable media are used in these advances. Several empirical experiments were conducted to determine how varied audio scripts affect listening comprehension scores in distinct learners. The conclusion emphasizes how audio scripts improve listening exam instruction and reliability. This article recommends a systematic audio script development approach incorporating academic knowledge and language testing experience. Future research and development should improve listening assessment approaches, language acquisition, and evaluation.

Enhancing personalized learning: AI-driven identification of learning styles and content modification strategies

In the rapidly advancing era of educational technology, customized learning materials have the potential to enhance individuals’ learning capacities. This research endeavors to devise an effective method for detecting a learner’s preferred learning style and subsequently adapting the learning content to align with that style, utilizing artificial intelligence AI techniques. Our investigation finds that analyzing learners’ web tracking logs for activity classification and categorizing individual responses for feedback classification are highly effective methods for identifying a learner’s learning styles, such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. A custom dataset has been constructed in this research comprising approximately 506 samples and 22 features utilizing the Moodle learning management system (LMS), successfully categorizing students into their respective learning styles. Furthermore, decision tree, random forest, support vector machine (SVM), logistic regression, XGBoost, blending ensemble, and convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithms with corresponding optimized hyperparameters and synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE) have been applied for learning behavior classification. The blending ensemble technique with the XGBoost meta-learning model accomplished the best performance for learning style detection with an accuracy of 97.56%. Next, the text content of the electronic documents is modified by employing different natural language processing (NLP) techniques, including named entity recognition of spaCy, knowledge graph, generative pre-trained transformer 3 (GPT-3), and text-to-text transfer transformer (T5) model, to accommodate diverse learning styles. Various approaches, such as color coding, audio scripts, mind maps, flashcards, etc., are implemented to adapt the content effectively for the detected categories of learners. The spaCy NLP-based named entity recognition (NER) model demonstrates a 94.16% F1 score and 0.92 exact match ratio for color coding text generation of ten electronic documents comprising 790 distinct individual words. These modifications aim to cater to the unique preferences of learners, fostering a more personalized and engaging educational experience. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time an integrated learning style detection and content modification system has been developed in this work utilizing efficient AI techniques and a private dataset.

The impact of dictogloss and blogging on EFL students’ writing skills in an Indonesian tertiary vocational college

The purpose of this study is to assess students' writing abilities using dictogloss and blogging. It involved 24 students from vocational colleges and incorporated five audio scripts from Hughes and Naunton's "Students Book of Business Results (Intermediate)" (2008). It employed a mixed method in the form of a quasi-experimental. The data was acquired using questionnaires and interviews. The students were divided into two groups: half were assigned to the control group, while the other half were assigned to the experimental group, which received training while the control group did not. The experimental group achieved a score of 59, whereas the control group achieved an average score of 41. Future research should look in depth at how creatively tertiary vocational college students think, especially through listening activities.

Exploring the Strategies of Translating Cultural References in Kurdish Subtitling

The current study investigates the strategies of translating cultural references applied in the Kurdish subtitles of the American movie entitled ‘Scent of a Woman’. This research also determines the parameters that affect the application of translation strategies in the Kurdish subtitles on the movie. In doing so, the English audio scripts (i.e., source text) and their Kurdish subtitles (i.e., target text), were compared and interpreted in accordance with Pedersen’s taxonomy of subtitling strategies and parameters (2011). The results revealed that all the translation strategies proposed by Pedersen (2011) were used in the Kurdish subtitles. However, due to the consideration of the ‘monocultural parameter’, the subtitler most frequently used the strategy of retention in the Kurdish subtitles. On the other hand, he used the strategies of omission and official equivalence least frequently. It is also shown that the parameters affecting the application of subtitling strategies were monocultural, transcultural, infracultural, and polyesemiotics. In sum, the cultural differences between SL and TL made the subtitler adopt justifiable strategies depending on availability of specific parameters.

Cognitive bias modification for interpretation (CBM-I) for post-traumatic stress disorder: study protocol of an app-based randomised controlled trial

IntroductionPrevious studies indicate that computerised trainings implementing cognitive bias modification (CBM) for interpretation bias might be promising treatments for trauma-related cognitive distortions and symptoms. However, results are mixed, which might...

Development and validation of audio-based guided imagery and progressive muscle relaxation tools for functional bloating.

Mind-body techniques, including Guided Imagery (GI) or Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR), may effectively manage bloating. The current study aimed to develop and validate (psychometric and psychological responses) audio-based GI and PMR techniques for bloating. Audio scripts were first developed from literature reviews and in-depth interviews of participants with bloating diagnosed based on the Rome IV criteria. Scripts were validated using psychometric (content & face validity index) and physiological approaches (brain event-related potentials & heart rate variability). 45/63 participants completed the in-depth interview, and 'balloon' emerged as the synonymous imagery description for bloating, of which inflation correlated with a painful sensation. The final tools consisted of narrated audio scripts in the background of a validated choice of music. Overall, the content and face validity index for PMR and GI ranged from 0.92 to 1.00. For ERP and HRV, 17/20 participants were analyzed. For ERP, there was a significant difference between GI and PMR for alpha waves (p = 0.029), delta waves (p = 0.029), and between PMR and control for delta waves (p = 0.014). For HRV, GI and PMR exhibited similar autonomic responses over controls (overall p<0.05). The newly developed GI and PMR audio-based tools have been validated using psychometric and physiological approaches.

ADAPTATION OF HUMANITIES STUDENTS TO DISTANCE LEARNING AS A PROBLEM OF MODERN PEDAGOGY IN A PANDEMIC CONDITION

The article analyzes the problems of adaptation of humanities students to distance learning in a pandemic. The main elements, advantages and disadvantages of distance education are considered and analyzed, as well as the prospects of its development in modern Ukraine are forecasted. Based on the theoretical analysis of the study, it is proved that the effectiveness of distance learning increases with the use of the latest information and communication technologies (ICT), educational services and distance learning platforms that use free learning in a pandemic COVID 19: ED-ERA, MOODLE, PADLET, MY CLASS, CLASSTIME , EQUITY MAPS, GOOGLE CLASSROOM, GOOGLE SITES, GOOGLE FORMS. Application of webinars, video clips, audio scripts, forums, charts, ICQ, Skype, online testing, online tutorials and boards. Based on the study of the problems of adaptation of humanities students to the conditions of distance learning, we conducted a study on the educational platform Google Classroom using Blank Quiz. The sample consisted of 182 first- and fourth-year students of the Faculty of Linguistics and Social Communications of the National Aviation University, specialties 029 "Information, Library and Archival Affairs", 035 "Philology", 052 "Political Science", 053 "Psychology", 054 "Sociology", 231 Social work". The results of the study showed that most students during distance learning have mastered the skills of independent work, improved their level of knowledge. The biggest problem that arose in this issue - the lack of live communication with teachers, classmates and work in the university audience. Instead, mobility and accessibility were positively noted. The potential and efficiency of remote technologies is highly rated by respondents. The ways of successful adaptation of students of humanitarian specialties to the conditions of distance learning are determined: carrying out of the actions promoting interactive participation of students in educational process and extracurricular activities; students' work should be well planned, it helps to create a favorable social environment; high self-organization of students, which increases the creative and intellectual potential; aspiration and motivation to acquire knowledge; ability to interact with computer equipment, mastering the latest information technologies; readiness of pedagogical staff to organize online learning.

Teaching children with autism to request items using audio scripts, interrupted chain procedure and sufficient exemplar training

AbstractWe examined whether an interrupting chain procedure with establishing operation (EO)‐absent and EO‐present trials and sufficient exemplar training was effective in teaching three preschool‐aged children with autism to request missing items. Children were taught to request missing items across three different skill domains (play, self‐help, and academic tasks), and audio scripts were used as prompts. We employed a non‐concurrent multiple‐baseline design across participants. All three participants learned to request missing items during EO‐present trials and to refrain from doing so during EO‐absent trials. The behavior transferred to untrained tasks, generalized to new people, and was maintained at follow‐up 3 months after the intervention.

АПРОБАЦІЯ ЗАСОБІВ МАСОВОЇ ІНФОРМАЦІЇ ЧЕРЕЗ ДИСТАНЦІЙНЕ ВИКЛАДАННЯ ДИСЦИПЛІН У ЗАКЛАДІ ВИЩОЇ ОСВІТИ СПРИЧИНЕНІ ПАНДЕМІЄЮ КОРОНАВІРУСУ (COVID-19) (НА ПРИКЛАДІ МІЖНАРОДНОГО ВІДКРИТОГО УНІВЕРСИТЕТУ РОЗВИТКУ ЛЮДИНИ «УКРАЇНА», М. КИЇВ)

The results of the study of distance learning of disciplines on the example of inclusive education of students of the International Open University of Human Development "Ukraine" in a pandemic are presented. Theoretical and practical developments in the use of mass media are analyzed, approaches and understanding, communication through information and communication technologies, which significantly changed the educational process, thanks to new tools and channels of influence on the student audience, are comprehended. The versatility of communication is traced through the analysis and comparison of different approaches to understanding mass communication as a form of indirect communication through technical means to disseminate information to a mass student audience, the variability of communication tools. At the present stage of its development, mass communication promotes change (sometimes irreversible), dominated by tendencies of depersonalization and unification, which simultaneously affect the increase of student audience and reduce the dialogic quality of communication. Emphasis is placed on the ambiguity of this phenomenon, its shortcomings (dangerous viruses, lack of motivation, confidence, teamwork skills, difficult student identification, etc.) and advantages over traditional teaching of disciplines. Communication serves to unite the audience around a common goal, has an open, public nature, aimed at large student audiences, increasing information platforms, modularity, a large amount of educational information, no geographical boundaries, individual approach, webinars, videos, audio scripts, forums, on-line testing, interactive textbooks, boards, etc. The main factors of e-education implementation in the conditions of inclusion are given, examples of educational Internet environment, key tendencies of distance learning that transform learning with the help of technological innovations are highlighted, the need to reveal the experience of higher education institutions on special methods of teaching students is emphasized. special needs.

Teaching joint attention skills to adolescents and young adults with autism using multiple exemplars and script‐fading procedures

The purpose of the current study was to teach four adolescents and young adults with autism to initiate bids for joint attention using multiple exemplar training, textual prompts, audio scripts, and script‐fading procedures. A multiple‐probe across‐participants design was used. Three training categories and one generalization probe category of stimuli were assigned to each participant. The results demonstrated that all four participants learned to initiate bids for joint attention under training conditions, although using scripted, previously scripted, and generative language. Responding generalized to the nontraining stimuli within the training categories. Three of the four participants also demonstrated generalized responding across stimuli from the probe category. Acquisition of such responses may help increase positive social interactions for adolescents and young adults with autism in the future.

Intervention Development Process for a Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial: The Thoracic Peri-Operative Integrative Surgical Care Evaluation Trial.

Use of complementary therapies is high among people with cancer despite research gaps. The Thoracic Peri-Operative Integrative Surgical Care Evaluation (POISE) Trial will evaluate the impact of an integrative care intervention delivered by naturopathic doctors (NDs) in conjunction with usual care for patients undergoing surgery for lung, gastric, and esophageal cancer. To describe the multistep, multidisciplinary process of defining the integrative care intervention to be used in the Thoracic POISE trial using a principle-based approach that is pragmatic, holistic, safe, feasible, evidence driven, and consensus based. An Intervention Development Committee (IDC) made up of a multidisciplinary team of health care providers (NDs, surgeons, oncologists, nurses, dietitians, physiotherapists, pharmacists, and psychologists), researchers, and patients was established to oversee the process. Potential intervention components were identified through a clinical practice survey and expert opinion. Systematic literature reviews were conducted and scores assigned based on the following criteria: usage, safety, goals, feasibility/scalability, and evidence. The IDC selected an intervention to be piloted that consists of a standard palette including core and optional components. Safety, known risks, and interactions with pharmaceuticals were evaluated using industry and professional monographs, a scoping literature review, and consultations with hospital pharmacists. The clinical practice survey and expert opinion identified 28 components for consideration. Following literature reviews, scoring, consensus from the IDC, and safety and interaction considerations, an intervention palette consisting of core and optional components was defined. The intervention options vary based on the patient's phase of treatment and symptom-specific needs. The intervention includes supplements, physical recommendations (exercise), nutritional counseling, and psychological support (audio scripts). Through a multistep, multidisciplinary process an integrative care intervention was developed for the Thoracic POISE trial. The intervention will be piloted in a single-arm feasibility study, followed by a single-center randomized controlled trial (RCT), and finally a multicenter RCT.

Controverses by Larbi Oukada, Didier Bertrand, and Janet L. Solberg

passage, and as a means to introduce more reading or culture to the course. It is crucial to keep the reason for mastering grammar in mind: successful communication in French, both oral and written, both productive and receptive. “Les activités de brise-glace” allow students to interact with excerpts from literature in French while concentrating on the grammar. In summary, this text is well organized, thorough, and of use to learners, instructors, and scholars of French at all levels. It is an appropriate text for advanced grammar studies or as a reference text for other courses or to simply be on the shelf for anyone using the French language. Purdue University (IN) Jessica L. Sturm Oukada, Larbi, Didier Bertrand, and Janet L. Solberg. Controverses. 3rd ed. Boston: Cengage, 2016. ISBN 978-1-305-39098-0. Pp. 293. This intermediate-level text can be summarized as offering relevant, compelling, and contextualized content built on a pedagogically sound, communicative framework that is aligned with the National Standards. Controverses provides a foundation for improving written and oral expression as well as for an introduction into contemporary cultural debates. The text’s approach offers opportunities for self-expression, exploration of French cultural perspectives, consideration of the structure of the French language, as well as for extension of the material to other disciplines.Although the text could be adapted to other contexts,its content is most appropriate for universitylevel and other adult learners. This adult-focused content represents one of its major advantages over many competing intermediate texts, in that the material covered is more compelling input for university-level learners. The text is thematically organized by chapter, treating social issues such as education, friendship and social networks, technology,gender equality,collectivity versus individuality,globalization,immigration, and the global status of the French language.Within each chapter, a brief introduction to the theme is first provided. This introduction is followed by relevant vocabulary and grammatical items, as well as questions to begin a dialogue about students’ personal experiences with the topic. Moving beyond students’existent knowledge, two contrasting points of view are then presented, each accompanied with comprehension and extension questions.Within each chapter, there is also a liens socioculturels section, which uses a variety of texts ranging from data tables to quotes, in order to invite students to engage in cultural comparisons. A liens interdisciplinaires section in each chapter serves to extend the thematic discussions to other disciplines via a variety of literary pieces and texts from the social sciences. A synthesis section is then provided to help guide students in their reflection upon the material. Each chapter concludes with a liens communautaires section that invites the student to engage in additional independent research and a rédaction guidée section, which accompanies students through the process of developing and presenting an argument related to the chapter’s 236 FRENCH REVIEW 91.4 Reviews 237 theme. For instructors desiring more guided practice, a student activities manual is available on the text’s premium website. This website also offers mp3s, audio scripts, auto-graded quizzes, cultural web-based activities, flashcards, podcasts, and grammar tutorials, among other materials. Although its paperback price may be prohibitive to some, Cengage offers a more financially accessible e-book version at $24.49. The one aspect of this text that may be seen negatively by some instructors is its nearly exclusive emphasis on France and the United States.Although the final chapter treats the French language in multiple contexts including Senegal, Tunisia, and Quebec, the other chapters are focused heavily on France and the United States. This limitation could be overcome with the inclusion of supplementary material by the instructor. In summary, Controverses is a socio-culturally engaged, relevant, and pedagogically-sound textbook option for intermediate-level adult language learners that addresses both linguistic and intercultural competencies. University of South Dakota Kris Aric Knisely Potier, Alexandra. L’île aux géants + audio en ligne. Niveau A1. Beyrouth: Samir, 2016. ISBN 978-9953-31-877-6. Pp. 24. . Mystère au zoo de Karapo + audio en ligne. Niveau A1. Beyrouth: Samir, 2016. ISBN 978-9953-31-878-3. Pp. 24. . Une baleine dans la Seine + audio en ligne. Niveau A2...

The effect of transcranial direct current stimulation of the prefrontal cortex on implicit self-esteem is mediated by rumination after criticism

It has been proposed that a crucial link between cognitive (i.e., self-schemas) and biological vulnerability is prefrontal control. This is because decreased control leads to impaired ability to inhibit ruminative thinking after the activation of negative self-schemas. However, current evidence is mainly correlational. In the current experimental study we tested whether the effect of neurostimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on self-esteem is mediated by momentary ruminative self-referential thinking (MRST) after the induction of negative self-schemas by criticism. We used a single, sham-controlled crossover session of anodal transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) applied to the left DLPFC (cathode over the right supraorbital region) in healthy female individuals. After receiving tDCS/sham stimulation, we measured MRST and exposed the participants to critical audio scripts, followed by another MRST measurement. Subsequently, all participants completed two Implicit Relational Assessment Procedures to implicitly measure actual and ideal self-esteem. Our behavioral data indicated a significant decrease in MRST after real but not sham tDCS. Moreover, although there was no immediate effect of tDCS on implicit self-esteem, an indirect effect was found through double mediation, with the difference in MRST from baseline to after stimulation and from baseline to after criticism as our two mediators. The larger the decrease of criticism induced MRST after real tDCS, the higher the level of actual self-esteem. Our results show that tDCS can influence cognitive processes such as rumination, and subsequently self-esteem, but only after the activation of negative self-schemas. Rumination and negative self-esteem characterize different forms of psychopathology, and these data expand our knowledge of the role of the prefrontal cortex in controlling these self-referential processes, and the mechanisms of action of tDCS.

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OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Alcohol craving, particularly in response to stress and alcohol cues, can lead to relapse in alcohol-dependent individuals. Hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis markers such as the cortisol to corticotrophin (CORT:ACTH) ratio have been shown to be a significant predictor of alcohol relapse. Our objective was to evaluate the influence of HPA-axis measures on intravenous alcohol self-administration (IV-ASA) in binge and nonbinge drinkers. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Healthy, non-dependent binge drinkers (n=14) and nonbinge drinkers (n=11) participated in this study. They underwent 3 personalized imagery sessions, where they heard 5-minute personalized audio scripts designed to trigger stress, alcohol craving, and neutral-relaxation states. Immediately following these cues, participants were given access to alcohol using a novel IV-ASA paradigm for 120 minutes. Serial blood samples were collected for cortisol and ACTH levels. Subjective measures were collected serially using the Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS), Drug Effects Questionnaire (DEQ), and Alcohol Urge Questionnaire (AUQ). Analyses were conducted using linear regression. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Results showed that peak and average ACTH levels as well as the CORT:ACTH ratio during the early phase of the IV-ASA session following the stress and alcohol cues were significantly higher than the neutral script; this effect was seen primarily in binge drinkers. After script administration, a greater change from baseline for ACTH predicted time to peak BrAC during IV-ASA. Gender and binge group predicted AUQ MAX (peak alcohol craving over the entire study session) and WANT MAX (peak “want more alcohol” scores over the session). There was a significant correlation between IV-ASA and increased ACTH peak and average values in binge drinkers. The DEQ and AUQ measures were positively correlated with ACTH peak and ACTH change from baseline. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: These findings, to our knowledge, are the first demonstration that exposure to both stress and alcohol cues lead to an increase in ACTH during cue-induced IV-ASA, particularly in binge drinkers. These results suggest that changes in HPA-axis reactivity following stress and alcohol may be important determinants of alcohol consumption in non-dependent binge drinkers.

Difficulties in Inter-lingual Subtitling and the Strategies to Deal with: A Case Study of English Translation into Persian

This paper examines the obstacles in translating inter-lingual subtitling, and then suggests some weighty theoretical strategies to deal with such difficulties from English translation into Persian. The present study makes an effort to analyze three main strategies such as deleting, condensing and adapting in the subtitling translation (Baker &amp; Saldanha, 2009). This study is a corpus-based, comparative, descriptive and non-judgmental analysis of English-Persian parallel corpus. Moreover, this research is comprised of English audio scripts of four American movies with Persian subtitles. The result indicates that Baker and Saldanha’s proposed strategies are applicable, and the most frequent strategy is deleting at 53.47%.

Speaker recognition with hybrid features from a deep belief network

Learning representation from audio data has shown advantages over the handcrafted features such as mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) in many audio applications. In most of the representation learning approaches, the connectionist systems have been used to learn and extract latent features from the fixed length data. In this paper, we propose an approach to combine the learned features and the MFCC features for speaker recognition task, which can be applied to audio scripts of different lengths. In particular, we study the use of features from different levels of deep belief network for quantizing the audio data into vectors of audio word counts. These vectors represent the audio scripts of different lengths that make them easier to train a classifier. We show in the experiment that the audio word count vectors generated from mixture of DBN features at different layers give better performance than the MFCC features. We also can achieve further improvement by combining the audio word count vector and the MFCC features.

A Review of Video Modelling and Scripts in Teaching Conversational Skills to Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulties acquiring social skills without direct intervention. This article provides a review of research on the use of video modelling and scripts to improve the verbal conversational skills of individuals with ASD. The studies reviewed included participants with a diagnosis of ASD and reported empirical data on some aspect of verbal conversation. Percentage of non-overlapping data and percentage exceeding the mean metrics were calculated for each study and compared. Maintenance and generalisation data were also extracted. The results suggest that scripted interventions may be as effective as video modelling interventions and audio scripts may be more effective than visual scripts. Most studies focussed on relatively simple aspects of conversation such as initiating or responding. Nevertheless, the body of research is limited and further studies are needed to clarify these findings. Recommendations for future research and the limitations of this review are discussed.