Speech Instruction Research Articles

Lists, Spatial Practice and Assistive Technologies for the Blind

Lists, Spatial Practice and Assistive Technologies for the Blind

Faculty Religious Speech in Class

This article examines the tension in some university classrooms regarding the parameters that can be placed on professor speech—especially when the instructor's speech is related to a religious viewpoint. The cases discussed in this article demonstrate that federal courts have recognized important university interests that may conflict with First Amendment or academic freedom claims. Specifically, recent cases have illustrated the issue of a university's desire to protect students from a faculty member's comments that might promote religion or intimate prejudice about sexual orientation. Although academic freedom certainly warrants First Amendment protections, the parameters concerning the instructor's speech inside the classroom are unclear.

The nursing instructor's speech

The nursing instructor's speech

Change from Speech Instruction to Speech Therapy at the Tokyo Komei Public School for the Physically Handicapped: 1958 to 1962

Change from Speech Instruction to Speech Therapy at the Tokyo Komei Public School for the Physically Handicapped: 1958 to 1962

Effectiveness of speech Instruction and Its Value of the future

Effectiveness of speech Instruction and Its Value of the future

”Eve Did No Wrong”: Effective Literacy at a Public College for Women

In this article, I test claims made about rhetorical education for women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by examining Florida State College for Women (FSCW), one of eight public women’s colleges in the South. I recover the voices of instructors and students by looking both at the interweaving strands of literature, journalism, and speech instruction in the English curriculum and how students publicly represented themselves through writing. I argue that the rhetorical environment at FSCW created a robust climate of expression for students that complicates our understanding of the development of women’s education in speaking and writing.

“Should I let them talk?”: Private speech and task performance among preschool children with and without behavior problems

Abstract Preschool and kindergarten teachers must make decisions everyday about how much to allow their children to talk out loud to themselves during various classroom activities. The present study examines the effects of children's private speech use on task performance for a group of behaviorally at-risk children and a group of control children during a speech–action coordination task. Twenty-nine behaviorally at-risk preschool children and 43 control children completed two versions of a speech–action coordination task (motor sequencing version and numeric tapping) two times, once with and once without speech instructions. Results indicated that the behaviorally at-risk children used more speech spontaneously compared to control children and performed just as well, and that both groups of children performed better when given instructions to use speech. Implications of these findings for early childhood educators’ decisions about children's private speech use in the classroom are discussed.

Effects of Instructor Speech Rate on Student Affective Learning, Recall, and Perceptions of Nonverbal Immediacy, Credibility, and Clarity

Although research indicates that speech rate affects perceptions of speaker credibility as well as persuasiveness and information recall, research has failed to address how instructor speech rate affects student perceptions and learning. This study randomly assigned basic communication course students to one of three speech rate conditions (slow, moderate, fast), using a videotaped lesson by an instructor. Findings revealed significant differences for credibility, affective leaning, and nonverbal immediacy, but did not reveal significant differences for recall or clarity. Implications for instructional practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Clear Speech for Adults with a Hearing Loss: Does Intervention with Communication Partners Make a Difference?

Spouses of persons with hearing loss served as talkers to examine the benefits of clear speech intervention. One talker received intervention on clear speech. A second talker was simply instructed to speak clearly. Each talker was recorded reading sentences in three conditions: conversational speech, clear speech one week postintervention, and clear speech one month postintervention. Speech acoustic measures were obtained. Then the sentences were presented to subjects with normal hearing and subjects with hearing loss to measure speech recognition. Results showed that simply asking a talker to speak clearly was effective in eliciting clear speech; however, providing intervention yielded changes in more speech parameters, more stable changes, and better speech recognition. When listening to the talker who received intervention, subjects with hearing loss achieved the same performance as subjects with normal hearing. However, they performed worse than subjects with normal hearing when listening to the talker who received clear speech instructions only. Individuals with hearing loss would receive speech recognition benefits if their partners were provided with clear speech intervention.

Strategies used to increase speech clarity by normal-hearing children

It is common among clinicians to ask children to produce their best speech during intervention. However, it is unclear whether children know how to make their speech clearer. The strategies used by children with and without hearing loss have implications for maximizing intelligibility and for understanding the development of communication competency. As a first step toward this understanding, children (7 to 12 years of age) with normal hearing were asked to read ten simple sentences. They were told that they were testing a new computer program designed to recognize speech. There was, in fact, no recognition program and each child received the same output feedback. After providing normal speech to allow the program to get used to their voices, they subsequently produced their best and then very best, very clearest speech in order to see how accurate the recognition program could be. Acoustic analyses (intensity, fundamental and first two formant frequencies for all vowels, as well as sentence, vowel, and VOT durations) were performed on recorded waveforms from each repetition in order to determine what the children were varying to comply with best speech instructions. The results demonstrate large individual differences in strategies and persistent gender differences. [Work supported by NIH.]

Ability of laypersons to use the cincinnati prehospital stroke scale

Objective Early stroke recognition optimizes patients' opportunities to benefit from therapeutic options. Prehospital stroke recognition is suboptimal. If 9-1-1 dispatchers used stroke-identification tools, prehospital stroke recognition might occur more rapidly and accurately. The Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale (CPSS) is a brief, effective tool used by emergency medical services and hospital personnel to identify stroke. The study's goal was to determine whether laypersons could be instructed to use the CPSS over the telephone. Methods Adult visitors (laypersons) to a tertiary care emergency department were enrolled. Using a mock patient, laypersons were instructed to use the CPSS via telephone by an investigator simulating a 9-1-1 dispatcher. The patient randomly portrayed clinically normal and abnormal patient types. The layperson's ability to convey CPSS instructions to the patient and relay findings to the investigator was scored. Results Seventy laypersons were enrolled (35 each for normal and abnormal patient types). Average age was 48 years, 63% were female, and 40% never attended college. Facial droop and speech instructions were administered with 100% accuracy. Arm drift instructions were administered with 99% accuracy. Layperson accuracies for interpreting findings were 93% for facial droop, 93% for arm drift, and 97% for speech. Overall, stroke symptoms were detected with 94% sensitivity (95% CI 87, 100) and 83% specificity (95% CI 70, 95). Conclusion Laypersons correctly administered and interpreted the CPSS when directed to do so over the telephone by a trained investigator. These findings suggest that the CPSS may be a useful tool in early prehospital detection of stroke by dispatchers.

The Role of Gesture in Bilingual Education: Does Gesture Enhance Learning?

Studies investigating the role gesture plays in communication claim gesture has a minimal role, while others claim that gesture carries a large communicative load. In these studies, however, the role of gesture has been assessed in a context where speech is understood and could easily carry the entire communicative burden. We examine the role of gesture when speech is inaccessible to the listener. We investigated a population of children who, by their circumstances, are exposed to a language that is not accessible to them: Spanish-speaking students in an English-speaking school. Fifty-one first grade English-speaking students and Spanish-speaking students were tested. Half of the English-speaking and half of Spanish-speaking students viewed a 'speech only' math instructional tape (i.e.instruction was not accompanied by gesture), while the other half of the English-speaking and Spanishspeaking students viewed a 'speech and gesture' instructional tape. We found that learning increased two-fold for all students when gesture accompanied speech instruction, increasing Spanish-speaking learning from 0% to 50%. We speculate that gesture improved learning for Spanish-speaking children because gestural representation is not tied to a particular language. Rather, gesture reflects concepts in the form of universal representations. Implications for the communicative function of gesture are discussed.

ABILITY OF LAYPERSONS TO USE THE CINCINNATI PREHOSPITAL STROKE SCALE

Objective. Early stroke recognition optimizes patients' opportunities to benefit from therapeutic options. Prehospital stroke recognition is suboptimal. If 9-1-1 dispatchers used stroke-identification tools, prehospital stroke recognition might occur more rapidly and accurately. The Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale (CPSS) is a brief, effective tool used by emergency medical services and hospital personnel to identify stroke. The study's goal was to determine whether laypersons could be instructed to use the CPSS over the telephone. Methods. Adult visitors (laypersons) to a tertiary care emergency department were enrolled. Using a mock patient, laypersons were instructed to use the CPSS via telephone by an investigator simulating a 9-1-1 dispatcher. The patient randomly portrayed clinically normal and abnormal patient types. The layperson's ability to convey CPSS instructions to the patient and relay findings to the investigator was scored. Results. Seventy laypersons were enrolled (35 each for normal and abnormal patient types). Average age was 48 years, 63% were female, and 40% never attended college. Facial droop and speech instructions were administered with 100% accuracy. Arm drift instructions were administered with 99% accuracy. Layperson accuracies for interpreting findings were 93% for facial droop, 93% for arm drift, and 97% for speech. Overall, stroke symptoms were detected with 94% sensitivity (95% CI 87,100) and 83% specificity (95% CI 70, 95). Conclusion. Laypersons correctly administered and interpreted the CPSS when directed to do so over the telephone by a trained investigator. These findings suggest that the CPSS may be a useful tool in early prehospital detection of stroke by dispatchers.

Priming effects in speech and nonspeech modes of perception

A phonemic perception was assumed to be a process in which representation of speech signals is matched to phonemic representation in long-term memory. Since stimulation is supposed to activate relevant memory representation, priming effects were compared between speech sounds and their sinewave analogs, either in the speech mode or nonspeech mode of perception. An analog target imitating syllables /ba/ or /ga/ in Session 1 or their original speech target in Session 2 was preceded by one of 5 primers, which were these 4 target sounds, and a 1,000 Hz pure tone, with one of 6 interstimulus intervals (ISIs). In Session 1, half of the participants were asked to identify analogs as ill-synthesized syllables, “BA” or “GA,” and the other half were asked to label them as computer sounds, named “A” or “B.” In Session 2, all of them identified original syllables. Regardless of target types and ISIs, subjects given speech instructions showed faster identification of targets preceded by phonemically identical primers, while subjects given nonspeech instructions identified targets faster only when targets were preceded by physically identical primers. These results support that speech sounds and their analogs are accessible to common memory representation.

EFFECTS OF CHARISMATIC INFLUENCE TRAINING ON ATTITUDES, BEHAVIOR, AND PERFORMANCE

This study investigated the effectiveness of training in 2 components of charisma (charismatic communication style and visionary content). Forty‐one business students received charismatic influence training, presentation skills training, or no training. All participants prepared and gave a speech. Groups of 2‐3 students (N= 102) watched 1 of the videotaped speeches and then performed a task based on the speech instructions. Charismatic influence trainees performed better on a declarative knowledge test and exhibited more charismatic behaviors than those in the other conditions. In addition, participants who viewed a charismatic influence trainee performed best.

Rating, ranking, and understanding acoustical quality in university classrooms.

Nonoptimal classroom acoustical conditions directly affect speech perception and, thus, learning by students. Moreover, they may lead to voice problems for the instructor, who is forced to raise his/her voice when lecturing to compensate for poor acoustical conditions. The project applied previously developed simplified methods to predict speech intelligibility in occupied classrooms from measurements in unoccupied and occupied university classrooms. The methods were used to predict the speech intelligibility at various positions in 279 University of British Columbia (UBC) classrooms, when 70% occupied, and for four instructor voice levels. Classrooms were classified and rank ordered by acoustical quality, as determined by the room-average speech intelligibility. This information was used by UBC to prioritize classrooms for renovation. Here, the statistical results are reported to illustrate the range of acoustical qualities found at a typical university. Moreover, the variations of quality with relevant classroom acoustical parameters were studied to better understand the results. In particular, the factors leading to the best and worst conditions were studied. It was found that 81% of the 279 classrooms have "good," "very good," or "excellent" acoustical quality with a "typical" (average-male) instructor. However, 50 (18%) of the classrooms had "fair" or "poor" quality, and two had "bad" quality, due to high ventilation-noise levels. Most rooms were "very good" or "excellent" at the front, and "good" or "very good" at the back. Speech quality varied strongly with the instructor voice level. In the worst case considered, with a quiet female instructor, most of the classrooms were "bad" or "poor." Quality also varies with occupancy, with decreased occupancy resulting in decreased quality. The research showed that a new classroom acoustical design and renovation should focus on limiting background noise. They should promote high instructor speech levels at the back of the classrooms. This involves, in part, limiting the amount of sound absorption that is introduced into classrooms to control reverberation. Speech quality is not very sensitive to changes in reverberation, so controlling it for its own sake should not be a design priority.

Speech communication in Russia

This study reports the results of a survey given to Russian educators to assess the status of speech communication instruction in Russia. A stratified random survey was distributed by the Sociological Center of the State Committee on Higher Education of the Russian Federation to 2,200 Russian educators. Results suggest that most Russian educators are not familiar with speech communication as an academic discipline. Even though 40% of the respondents disagreed that speech communication should be included in the Russian curriculum, half of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that it should be included in the Russian curriculum. Most respondents agreed that if introduced to Russians, it should be included first in higher education, beginning with only one class included as part of a curriculum offered by another more traditional Russian academic department. Russian educators valued communication skills less than did U.S. personnel managers. Of the respondents 85% in the current study were unsure concerning whether they would be interested in personally teaching speech communication; 15% of the respondents indicated they would be interested in teaching speech communication. No respondents completely rejected the idea of teaching speech communication. Suggestions for establishing speech communication instruction in Russia are presented.

An Approach to Instruction of Pragmatic Aspects: Implications of Pragmatic Transfer by American Learners of Japanese

This study investigated pragmatic transfer in American learners of Japanese responding to compliments. A closed role play was used to collect interlanguage data from the learners and normative data from Japanese and American native speakers. An Initial Sentence Analysis indicated mat the learners transferred nonuse of avoidance strategies but not of positive strategies. The American normative data suggested a dominant use of positive strategies, whereas a mixture of three strategies was found in the Japanese normative data. A Semantic Formula Analysis further revealed qualitative differences between the learners and the native speakers. Based on the findings, suggestions concerning the instruction of speech act performance are made for second and foreign (L2/FL) language instructors. The study instantiates a utility of pragmatic transfer research for improving instructional approach and course content.

Factors influencing perceived listening quality in university classrooms

The speech transmission index (STI) can be used to describe acoustical quality in classrooms. The objective of the work reported here was to establish the relationship between STI and user subjective perception of the listening environment by studying thirty university classrooms. STI measurements were made in these rooms when unoccupied. A questionnaire was developed to create a summary measure of perceived listening quality (PLQ) and to enquire about user-related factors that could affect PLQ. The questionnaire was administered to over 5700 students in 107 classes in the 30 rooms. Preliminary results suggest that the main factors contributing to increased PLQ are the perceived instructor speech level, the perceived quality of the classroom air and lighting, the proportion of time that the instructor speaks toward the audience, and the ‘‘unoccupied’’ STI. Use of a speech-reinforcement system reduced PLQ. [See NOISE-CON Proceedings for full paper.]

An Approach to Instruction of Pragmatic Aspects: Implications of Pragmatic Transfer by American Learners of Japanese

This study investigated pragmatic transfer in American learners of Japanese responding to compliments. A closed role play was used to collect interlanguage data from the learners and normative data from Japanese and American native speakers. An Initial Sentence Analysis indicated mat the learners transferred nonuse of avoidance strategies but not of positive strategies. The American normative data suggested a dominant use of positive strategies, whereas a mixture of three strategies was found in the Japanese normative data. A Semantic Formula Analysis further revealed qualitative differences between the learners and the native speakers. Based on the findings, suggestions concerning the instruction of speech act performance are made for second and foreign (L2/FL) language instructors. The study instantiates a utility of pragmatic transfer research for improving instructional approach and course content.