The use of multiple-choice testing is common among all levels of education. This study examined one type of multiple-choice testing: the Immediate Feedback--Assessment Technique®? (IF-AT®?), which uses an answer-until-correct testing format. More than 300 undergraduate students in a speech-language-hearing sciences course used the IF-AT®? to take…

A simultaneous EPG/EMA study of tongue gestures of five speakers was conducted to investigate the kinematic events accompanying alveolar stop reductions in the context of a velar plosive /k/ and in the context of a laryngeal fricative /h/ in two languages, English and German. No systematic language differences could be detected. Alveolar…

The tongue is a deformable object, and moves by compressing or expanding local functional segments. For any single phoneme, these functional tongue segments may move in similar or opposite directions, and may reach target maximum synchronously or not. This paper will discuss the independence of five proposed segments in the production of speech.…

This paper reports on a project using a series of single subjects to investigate the effectiveness of using electropalatography (EPG) in treating ten children with persisting speech difficulties of no known organic aetiology. The aims of the project were two-fold, firstly to assess whether the subjects selected benefited from this treatment, and…

In the profession of speech-language pathology, it is commonly reported that children who stutter, as a group, are more likely to have phonological and language disorders than their non-stuttering peers. Some support for this belief comes from survey studies that have questioned speech-language pathologists about the children on their caseloads…

One of the factors that affects the reliability of perceptual voice evaluation is the rating scale. Equal-appearing interval (EAI) and visual analogue (VA) scales are the two most common scales used and have attracted much attention in recent studies of perceptual voice evaluation. Available findings are contradictory, with one study finding the…

The task of syllable alternating motion rate (AMR) (also called diadochokinesis) is suitable for examining speech disorders of varying degrees of severity and in individuals with varying levels of linguistic and cognitive ability. However, very limited information on this task has been published for subjects with traumatic brain injury (TBI). This…

In this paper we report on an adult male participant with a rare form of progressive speech degeneration. We present acoustic phonetic data on his vowel and consonant production, and describe his prosody and syllable structure. We suggest possible phonological analyses of his speech, concluding that a gestural approach to phonology best…

Background: Data have accumulated to show that the Lidcombe Program of early stuttering intervention is a safe treatment with positive outcomes for preschoolers who stutter, and a randomized controlled trial is under way at the time of writing. Program components have not been investigated experimentally so the functionality of each component is…

The terms "fortis" and "lenis" are variously regarded as having one single underlying phonetic correlate or many. An exploratory analysis of acoustic and aerodynamic data on contrasting stop series in a number of European and non-European languages confirms that a significant variation in peak intra-oral pressure and in articulatory stricture…

Background: There are conflicting reports in the research literature of the literacy outcome of children with speech disorder. The link between phonological awareness and literacy in typically developing and literacy delayed children is well established, but there is less research specifically into children with an isolated speech disorder (i.e.…

Background: Theoretical and empirical support now exists for the finding that many children with expressive phonological impairment experience problems in acquiring phonological awareness and early literacy skills. Few studies, however, have examined the long-term academic and literacy outcomes for this population, in particular as the…

Study suggests that job satisfaction increases to the extent that salespeople (1) know how well they have done, as judged by their superior; (2) know what results their superior expects; and (3) clearly understand the relative importance of job goals. (PD)

Various acoustic measures of speaking rate were calculated for 40 adult speakers of New Zealand English (NZE). These measures were then compared to a group of 40 adult speakers of American English (AE). Results of the analysis identified significantly faster overall speaking rate and articulation rate for the NZE group compared to the AE group. No…

Background: Terms such as 'clinical intuition' have often been applied to the practice of speech and language therapy. Various authors have aimed to make the process of therapy practice more explicit, and it is argued that recently developed descriptive/analytic frameworks have the potential to engender the critical mindset necessary for student…