There has been much debate in assessment research about the inclusion of Global English accents in high-stakes listening tests. This study explored test-takers' attitudes toward the inclusion of different English accents in the Duolingo English Test (DET) 2021 test version and their associations with listening test scores. One hundred sixty…

Purpose: Verbal working memory (VWM) delays are commonly found in prelingually deaf youth with cochlear implants (CIs), albeit with considerable interindividual variability. However, little is known about the neurocognitive information-processing mechanisms underlying these delays and how these mechanisms relate to spoken language outcomes. The…

Purpose: Although acquisition of Chinese lexical tones by second language (L2) learners has been intensively investigated, very few studies focused on categorical perception (CP) of lexical tones by highly proficient L2 learners. This study was designed to address this issue with behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Method: Behavioral…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to quantify changes in speech intelligibility in two cohorts of people with Parkinson's disease (PD; those with and without deep brain stimulation [DBS]) across a broad range of self-selected speech rate alterations in: (1) read sentences; and (2) extemporaneous speech (monologues). Method: Four speaker groups…

The prime objectives of this study were to unveil the level of anxiety and the sources of English language anxiety of the tertiary level students of Bangladesh. Through a questionnaire survey using Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale developed by Horwitz et al. (1986), the study found that most of the tertiary level learners have high anxiety…

Declining enrollments and increased competition for college students have emphasized the need to demonstrate students are learning what we think they are learning. Taking a longitudinal look at speech evaluations from the basic course, this study tracked student learning gains in each rubric area on speeches evaluated between 2009-2019. Using a…

This research is analytical in nature and a comparative study of code-mixing and code-switching among the children of 2 to 5 belonging to the educated and uneducated background. The focus of the research is how the children mix and switch Punjabi and Urdu at their early age. This study of code-mixing and code-switching in Urdu and Punjabi is found…

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of visual teaching material and resources in the development of Speaking Skills in the English language in Secondary level students in India. In the study, the experimental design with pre-test and post-test control groups was chosen. The research consisted of 82 secondary-level students. In order…

Purpose: Social interaction poses many challenges for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and complex communication needs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of video visual scene displays (video VSDs) on communication during interactions between adolescents with ASD and peer partners. Method: This study used an…

Purpose: This preliminary research examined (a) the perception of two common sources of indexical variability in speech--regional dialects and foreign accents, and (b) the relation between indexical processing and sentence recognition among prelingually deaf, long-term cochlear implant (CI) users and normal-hearing (NH) peers. Method: Forty-three…

Purpose: The purposes of this study are to develop a novel multimodal framework for measuring variability at the muscular, kinematic, and acoustic levels of the motor speech hierarchy and evaluate the utility of this framework in detecting speech impairment in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Method: The myoelectric activities of three…

Pointing has long been considered influential in language acquisition. Certain pre-linguistic vocal expressions may hold even greater value in addressing the transition to language. The goal of the present study is longitudinal evaluation of early communicative development, addressing the influence of pre-linguistic gestures and vocal expressions.…

Purpose: This research investigated the nature of cognitive decline in prodromal Alzheimer's disease (AD), particularly in mild cognitive impairment, amnestic type (aMCI). We assessed language in aMCI as compared with healthy aging (HA) and healthy young (HY) with new psycholinguistic assessment of complex sentences, and we tested the degree to…

Purpose: The study aimed to investigate the relationship between speech recognition in noise, age, hearing ability, self-rated listening effort, inhibitory control (measured with the Swedish Hayling task), and working memory capacity (WMC; measured with the Reading Span test). Two different speech materials were used: the Hagerman test with low…

This study focuses on the effectiveness of the Learn Social online platform on the speaking skills of English Literature 2018 students of University of Sumatera Utara. The purpose of this research is to know if the Learn Social online platform is effective in improving the speaking skills of students of English Literature 2018, at the University…