Deviant Speech Research Articles

Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England

Colonial New Englanders would have found our modern notions of free speech very strange indeed. Children today shrug off harsh words by chanting sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me, but in the seventeenth century people felt differently. A soft tongue breaketh the bone, they often said. Governing the Tongue explains why the spoken word assumed such importance in the culture of early New England. Author Jane Kamensky re-examines such famous Puritan events as the Salem witch trials and the banishment of Anne Hutchinson to expose the ever-present fear of what the puritans called sins of the tongue. But even while dangerous or deviant speech was restricted, Kamensky points out, godly speech was continuously praised and promoted. Congregations were told that one should ones voice like a trumpet to God and cry out and cease not. By placing speech at the heart of familiar stories of Puritan New England, Kamensky develops new ideas about the relationship between speech and power both in Puritan New England and, by extension, in our world today.

Speech and language skills in children who required neonatal intensive care. I. Spontaneous speech at 6.5 years of age

Spontaneous speech at age 6.5 years was studied separately in a follow‐up of speech and language skills in a regional cohort of 284 children requiring neonatal intensive care and in 40 controls. Eight aspects of spontaneous speech were evaluated in a conversation: A1, information; A2, speech motor function; A3, sound pattern; A4, word finding; A5, word selection; A6, grammar; A7, interaction; and A8, motivation. The children were grouped by gestational age. Most children had well developed spontaneous speech. The different groups showed very few differences in types of deviations in spontaneous speech. All groups differed from the controls in speech motor function and formal language (A2‐A6), but only one child, born at <32 weeks, had a pronounced deviation in one of these aspects. Obvious deviations in one or more aspects of spontaneous speech were more common among children born at 28‐31 weeks and in those born fullterm (>37 weeks) than among extremely preterm children born at 23–27 weeks.

Speech and language skills in children who required neonatal intensive care. I. Spontaneous speech at 6.5 years of age.

Spontaneous speech at age 6.5 years was studied separately in a follow-up of speech and language skills in a regional cohort of 284 children requiring neonatal intensive care and in 40 controls. Eight aspects of spontaneous speech were evaluated in a conversation: A1, information; A2, speech motor function; A3, sound pattern; A4, word finding; A5, word selection; A6, grammar; A7, interaction; and A8, motivation. The children were grouped by gestational age. Most children had well developed spontaneous speech. The different groups showed very few differences in types of deviations in spontaneous speech. All groups differed from the controls in speech motor function and formal language (A2-A6), but only one child, born at <32 weeks, had a pronounced deviation in one of these aspects. Obvious deviations in one or more aspects of spontaneous speech were more common among children born at 28-31 weeks and in those born fullterm (> or =37 weeks) than among extremely preterm children born at 23-27 weeks.

Negative intraoral air pressures of deaf children with cochlear implants: physiology, phonology, and treatment.

The primary purpose of this investigation was to examine deaf children's use of negative intraoral air pressures (-Po's) from a physiological and a phonological perspective, with the hope of gathering insight into the strategies these children use to produce speech. A secondary purpose was to compare the effectiveness of two methods of treating these deviant productions. Subjects were four profoundly deaf children, age 6:6-9:2, who used cochlear implants and had demonstrated persistent use of -Po's. Po's were collected during production of CV syllables with initial [p] and [b] and a variety of vowel contexts. Two of the children used -PO's more often before low than high vowels. We suggest that this vowel-based pattern may result when deaf children learn to lower their larynges in response to visible jaw lowering cues. Another child presented with a pattern of more frequent -Po's before front than back vowels, suggesting that she may have expanded her pharynx anteriorly as she attempted to achieve an anterior tongue placement. Two children also clearly used -Po's more frequently for voiced than voiceless stops, possibly resulting from a tendency to use the degree rather than the timing of vocal fold adduction to distinguish voiceless and voiced phonemes. Two of the children were enrolled in a single-subject multiple baseline study to compare the effectiveness of traditional articulation treatment and visual-feedback treatment. The child who was a far less proficient talker demonstrated rapid and sustained change, whereas the better talker demonstrated minimal change with treatment. This study provides evidence that (a) deaf children use speech production strategies quite unlike those of normally hearing children and (b) deviant speech behaviors of deaf children should be treated before they become part of functional phonological systems. This work highlights the need to consider the unique speech behaviors of deaf children, and their reliance on alternate feedback mechanisms, when developing assessment and treatment procedures.

Event-Related Potentials and the Categorical Perception of Speech Sounds

To determine whether there are physiological correlates of categorical perception. Human evoked potentials were recorded in response to computer-modified speech sounds from a nine-stimulus continuum between /ba/ and /da/. In the first experiment, subjects listened to trains composed of 52% /ba/ or /da/ and 6% of each of the other eight stimuli and classified the stimuli as "ba" or "da." In the second experiment, subjects read a book and ignored trains containing a standard stimulus (p = 80%) and two deviant speech sounds (p = 10% each), one within the same category as the standard and the other across the category-boundary. The third experiment was similar to the first except that the subject was reading. The fourth experiment compared the responses to stimuli that deviated from standards in terms of their phonemic category or intensity. An N2-P3 complex was evoked by those stimuli in the more improbable category when the stimuli were attended to in the first experiment. In the second and third experiments, there was a clear mismatch negativity (MMN) for the across-category deviant stimuli when the standard stimulus came from the /ba/ end of the continuum. However, when the standard stimulus came from the /da/ end of the continuum, there was no definite MMN. The overall frequency-content of our /da/ stimulus was broader than that of the /ba/ stimulus. A deviant stimulus from the /da/ end of the continuum thus contained frequencies which were not present in the /ba/-standard stimuli and these frequencies could elicit a MMN. In the fourth experiment the MMN evoked by a small change in intensity was much larger than that evoked by a change in phonemic category. The N2-P3 complex accurately reflects the phonemic categorization of speech stimuli. The MMN evoked by changes in speech sounds may indicate the detection of acoustic rather than phonetic changes.

Speech disorders in children treated for posterior fossa tumours: ataxic and developmental features.

The oromotor and speech abilities of 19 children (14 boys and five girls) who had been treated for posterior fossa tumour were evaluated using three assessment procedures. All subjects completed the Frenchay Dysarthria Assessment and the Fisher-Logemann Test of Articulation Competence. Perceptual analyses were also performed on the subjects' connected speech samples. Based on the three assessment procedures, 11 of the 19 tumour subjects were judged to be speech disordered. The 11 speech-disordered subjects were then compared to a control group matched for age and sex to determine the nature and severity of speech abnormalities which may occur subsequent to the treatment of posterior fossa tumour in childhood. Both developmental and dysarthric features were identified in the speech of the 11 tumour subjects. The deviant speech characteristics exhibited by the tumour subjects included imprecise consonants, excess stress and reduced intelligibility, as well as the retention of developmental phonological processes. These features are described in detail and discussed with reference to descriptive studies of adult dysarthria. An interaction between acquired and developmental disorders of speech is proposed.

Perceptual speech characteristics of dysarthric speakers following severe closed head injury.

The perceptual speech characteristics of a group of 20 severely closed head-injured (CHI) subjects were compared with those of a normal non-neurologically impaired control group matched for age and sex. The CHI subjects were found to be significantly less intelligible than the controls, and exhibited deficits in the prosodic, resonatory, articulatory, respiratory and phonatory aspects of speech production. The most frequently occurring deviant speech dimensions related to disturbances of prosody, resonance, articulation and respiration, with those deviant speech dimensions pertaining to phonation being less apparent in the speech of the CHI subjects. The findings are discussed in relation to the heterogeneity of the CHI population and the effects of CHI on neuromuscular function. The study highlights the need for accurate, instrumental physiological evaluation of the motor subsystems involved in speech production.

Speech Disorders following Dominant Hemisphere Lesions Centred on the Basal Ganglia, Internal Capsule and Thalamus

The motor speech abilities of a group of 10 subjects with lesions centred on the subcortical structures of their dominant hemisphere were investigated in a series of experiments that aimed to first, determine the presence of a speech disorder; second, describe the characteristics of that speech disorder; and third, document the oromotor function of the speech disordered subjects. In the group of 10 subjects who participated in the first experiment, there was a group of three subjects with a speech disorder, a group of four subjects with a questionable speech disorder, and a group of three subjects with normal speech abilities. All of the subjects classified as having a speech disorder or questionable speech disorder had some deviant speech characteristics on a perceptual rating scale, the most commonly occurring features being imprecise consonants, hypernasality, and audible inspiration. The cluster of features characterising the speech disorder of each subject, however, was heterogeneous. Furthermore, ea...

Preference between compensatory articulation and nasal emission of air in cleft palate speech -with special reference to the reinforcement theory

The reinforcement theory claims that certain speech deviations in children born with a cleft palate are due to reinforcement from the environment preferring these types of deviant speech. Also, it has been found that the mothers of cleft palate children tend to take on a teaching role in their interaction with their children. As the results of the present study show that female teachers tend to prefer compensatory speech to a much greater extent than others, it may be assumed that “teaching mothers” or very “teaching-like mothers”, are potential candidates for reinforcing speech with compensatory articulation.

Words in time: A social history of the English vocabulary By Geoffrey Hughes (review)

404 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 67, NUMBER 2 (1991) Hickey's 'Introduction' (1-12) surveys previous definitions of style and areas in which the interests of stylistic analysts overlap those of pragmaticists. The essays follow in three sections . George W. Turner's 'Sharing, shaping, showing: The deep uses of language' (15-27) opens the eclectic Section I ('Style in communication and comprehension'). Turner combines certain speech-act axioms—such as that grammatical forms (e.g. the interrogative) correlate only imperfectly with superficially associated 'uses of language' (e.g. asking) (20)— with several Jakobsonian terms ('metalinguistic ' [23]; 'phatic' [24]). But his 'happy' admission that in this field '[at] present ... little is certain but much is potential' (25) seems finally frustrating. Diane Blakemore's 'Linguistic form and pragmatic interpretation: The explicit and the implicit' (28-51) provides more substance . Blakemore isolates limitations in the Gricean approach to conversational implicature , showing that contextual information may influence the recovery of (supposedly independent ) propositional meaning, while conversely, explicit linguistic markers may constrain how hearers apply contextual factors to an utterance. Hickey presents empirical data in 'The style of topicalization. how formal is it?' (52-70): Spanish 'dangling topic' (54) constructions lead speakers to perceive utterances as more spontaneous . Though presented only in broad strokes, Hickey's data are more arresting than such evaluative comments as his remark that informality constitutes a 'price to be paid' for the pragmatic economy of such structures (65). Section II, 'Style in speech and situation', benefits from a unifying focus on spontaneous discourse. Flora Klein-Andreu's data for 'Speech priorities' (73-86) come exclusively from conversational Spanish. 'X-forms' (fragments that resemble topicalizations but bear no morphosyntactic relationship to their adjoining clauses) highlight the speaker's interest, she argues , rather than neutrally enhancing speakerhearer 'informativeness' (84). In 'The pragmastylistics of hypothetical discourse' (87-105), Carmen Silva-Corvalán offers a vocabulary for analyzing discourses which 'convey imaginary, conjectural information, rather than facts' (89) that is analogous to the vocabulary provided for narratives by William Labov. Applying her methods to hypothetical discourses in Spanish, she derives an index of the certainty with which subjects assert whatever claims they advance. After two essays stressing the speaker's role in stylistic choice, Margret Selting's German data for 'Speech styles in conversation as an interactive achievement' (106-32) demonstrate instead how each 'alter(n)ation of speech style' (106) depends on previous choices made by both participants in an ongoing conversation; no speech style can thus be regarded normatively as 'conventional' or 'pre-existent' (108). In the discourses studied by Jenny A. Thomas ('Discourse control in confrontational interaction '. 133-56), speech styles are also 'interactively achieved', but they result from asymmetric negotiation; socially dominant speakers exploit discoursal indicators to 'constrain the contributions ... a subordinate addressee may make' (136). Opening Section III, 'Style in literature and learning', Raymond Chapman examines novelists ' use of dialect in 'The reader as listener: Dialect and relationships in The mayor ofCasterbridge ' (159-78). Literary representations of nonstandard speech, he argues, seldom mimic dialect features precisely; even the intensity of a single character's deviant speech may vary as the author seeks instead to communicate subtleties of the pragmatic contexts in which the dialogues occur. Claes Schaar, in 'Inscriptions in Paradise lost: Five variants of a vertical context system' (179-90), displays extraordinary scholarship in constructing for crucial phrases from Paradise lost composite 'infracontexts ', clusters of allusions which convey 'associative richness' (180) not evident in the immediate context of the work itself. For Schaar's erudite reader, Nils Erik Enkvist & Gun Leppiniemi ( 'Anticipation and disappointment : An experiment in protocolled reading of Auden's Gare du midi', 191-207) substitute a group of comparative neophytes. Revealing Auden's text a piece at a time. Enkvist & Leppiniemi record their subjects' changing expectations . [Timothy R. Austin, Loyola University Chicago.] Words in time: A social history of the English vocabulary. By Geoffrey Hughes. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. Pp. vi, 270. Cloth $34.95, paper $14.95. Geoffrey Hughes has written a well-organized and well-documented historical lexical-semantic account of the English lexicon from Alfredian Old English to the present. He is BOOK NOTICES 405 particularly concerned with cultural change as inspiring and controlling the...

Reliability and Agreement of Ratings of Ataxic Dysarthric Speech Samples With Varying Intelligibility

Indices of interjudge reliability and inter- and intrajudge agreement were calculated from the ratings made by 15 experienced speech clinicians on five deviant speech dimensions with respect to 15 speakers with ataxic dysarthria. Speakers were chosen to cover a wide range of speech intelligibility (16-97%) as measured by the sentence intelligibility transcriptions of the Assessment of Intelligibility of Dysarthric Speech (Yorkston & Beukelman, 1981). Intraclass correlation coefficients derived from each judge on two occasions were above .6 for imprecise consonants, excess and equal stress, and harsh voice, but below .6 for distorted vowels and below .5 for irregular articulatory breakdown. The last dimension also had the lowest percent agreement for the interjudge and intrajudge comparisons. Poor speech dimension definition seems to be the most likely source of error on irregular articulatory breakdown. Judges agreed equally well in rating dysarthric speech across the range from low to high intelligibility.

Terminal-fluent speaker interaction and the contextualization of deviant speech

Analysis of slim texts and determination of speech deviance and non-deviance on discourse grounds rather than in the context of isolated or artificially produced utterances form the main thrust of this paper. Modern discourse analysis and the ethnography of speaking have contributed conceptual and methodological tools for the investigation of naturally occurring interaction. I suggest here that notions found useful in discourse, ethnographic, pragmatic and literary approaches to language use, can shed light on crucial aspects of communication in languages shift contexts. In particular, a combination of the above mentioned approaches broaches further possibilities for the investigation and understanding of the emergent properties of discourse with an emphasis on the acceptability and ratification of speech produced by low-proficiency speakers of a contracting or dying language. The Greek-Albanian speech community of modern Greece provides data suitable for this kind of analysis.

Perceptual Analysis of the Speech in Ataxic Dysarthria

The perceptual speech characteristics of ataxic dysarthria have been described by various authors, and reflect impairment in the speech production processes of articulation, phonation, and prosody. No study, however, has systematically compared the speech of ataxic dysarthrics with that produced by an appropriately matched non-clinical population of normal speakers, to determine whether, and to what extent, the perceptual characteristics of speech produced by ataxic dysarthric speakers differs from that produced by normal speakers. The present study, therefore, compared the perceptual speech characteristics of a group of 16 ataxic dysarthrics with those of a normal non-neurologically impaired control group matched for age and sex. The ataxic dysarthric group were significantly less intelligible than the control group, the most prominent deviant speech dimensions relating to disordered prosody and articulation. Deficits were also noted in the processes of respiration and phonation.

Studies in Parkinson's Disease: I. Perceptual Speech Analyses

The perceptual speech characteristics of a group of 19 subjects with mild-moderate Parkinson's Disease (PD) were compared with those of a normal non-neurologically impaired control group matched for age and sex. Deficits were found in all aspects of speech production, including respiration, phonation, prosody, articulation and resonance. Observed speech deviations were most often mild. The speech deviation which contributed most to the variance in overall intelligibility of speech was imprecision of consonant articulation. Deficits in the phonatory system, including the presence of hoarseness and a strained strangled phonation with intermittent breathiness, were found to be the frequently occurring speech deviations in PD. Disturbed prosodic features were also noted, including a disturbed general stress pattern and a lack of variation in both pitch and loudness levels. The need for careful instrumentally based assessments of the physiological and acoustic features of hypokinetic dysarthria is emphasized.

Multiple Sclerosis: Associated Speech and Language Disorders

A sample of 23 Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients were administered a battery of tests in order to determine the type, frequency and severity of their speech and language problems. Deficits were found in all aspects of speech production, including respiration, phonation, prosody, articulation and resonance. Observed speech deviations were most often mild. The speech deviation which contributed the most to variations in overall intelligibility of speech was precision of consonant production. Impaired respiratory support for speech occurred in all subjects and was found to be highly associated with deviations in vocal quality, volume control and articulation.Subtests of the Neurosensory Centre Comprehensive Examination for Aphasia and the Wiig-Semel Test of Linguistic Concepts were administered to 20 patients. The majority of MS patients showed a severe deficit on the word fluency and sentence construction subtests. A dysfunction in the comprehension of logico-grammatical constructions was also evident in mos...

Reported use of a Japanese accent to promote fluency

This report describes a case study of a young adult man who reportedly adopted an imitation of a Japanese accent as a means of eliminating symptoms of stuttering. Prolonged unfilled pauses and altered stress patterns were key features of his deviant speech pattern. Following an extensive evaluation of his communication skills and case history, it was determined that his unusual speech pattern may have resulted from an identification with a small peer group of Japanese exchange students with whom he felt comfortable. This identity (including his accent) may have provided him with self-confidence he lacked as a teenager, thus enabling him to communicate with more assurance and confidence. It was conclude he was neither a stutterer nor a clutterer.

Speech and voice parameters of depression: A pilot study

This pilot study tests one model for interdisciplinary research between speech science and psychiatry. Strengths and weaknesses of the model are noted. Thirteen depressed subjects were evaluated before and after treatment with antidepressant medication. Subjects were rated on scales for severity of depression and speech deviations. Scores on a depressed voice scale, comprising seven of the speech dimensions found to be most consistently altered in depression, showed significant improvement after treatment for depression. The constellation of speech signs found in depression suggested a hypokinetic disturbance of the extrapyramidal system. Several directions for further inquiry into this potential relationship are suggested.

Speech and Language Disturbances

A basic acquaintance with a variety of deviations in speech and language behavior that are encountered in a clinical setting is provided. Clinical differences among the various disorders are established, along with a glossary of frequently used terms.

Speech disability in children: some general considerations.

Difficulties of definition are discussed with reference to overlap between phonological and phonetic disorders. Aspects of delayed speech are described and a brief account is given of deviant speech. Current patterns of management are considered.

Auditory Feedback and Speech Development

Publisher Summary This chapter evaluates the role of feedback, particularly auditory feedback, in the development of speech in children. In the recent enthusiasm for exploring rule-governed bases of linguistic competence, the fact that speech is a highly coordinated motor skill has been almost ignored. Competence theories have ruled the imagination of researchers whereas performance data have been grudgingly accepted as the imperfect source from which competence theories are derived. As important as linguistic considerations are, they inevitably take form through an expressive system such as speech, writing, or signing, and such a system could scarcely function without the contribution of feedback, at least during certain stages of development. Under normal circumstances, speech clearly is multiply determined. Speakers acquire the language to which they have been exposed in the presence of different kinds of listeners and in a variety of social and physical situations. Although it is a motor skill, speech is the expression of linguistic codes and communication needs. Speakers talk louder in noise and also to impress a listener with their determination. Choice of words, speech rate, and inflectional pattern are all multiply determined, reflecting the contributions of social and physical variables, as well as the physiological constraints of the speech system. The relationship between forms of feedback and the various parameters of speech production are well worth exploring in future research. The area is an exciting one, as it pertains both to normal and deviant speech development.