Development of a Psychometric Measure of the Propensity to Consciously Control and Monitor Speech Production.

Purpose A speech-specific reinvestment scale (SSRS) is a psychometric measure of the propensity to consciously control and monitor speech production. This study develops and validates an SSRS as well as examines its relationship with speech performance with the moderating effects of trait social anxieties (i.e.

Effects of Error Experience on Learning to Lower Speech Nasalance Level.

Purpose This research aims to examine the effects of error experience when learning to speak with lowered nasalance level. Method A total of 45 typical speakers were instructed to learn to lower speech nasalance level in either an errorless (restricted possibility for committing errors) or an errorful (unrestricted possibility for committing errors) learning condition. The nasality level of the participants' speech was measured by a nasometer and quantified by nasalance scores (in percent).

Spectral moment analysis of affricates produced by Mandarin-speaking pre-adolescents with repaired cleft palate.

Objective: To explore the spectral differences in frication noise between aspirated and unaspirated affricates in typical Putonghua (standard Mandarin Chinese) pre-adolescent speakers, and to compare the spectral characteristics of affricate production between speakers with repaired cleft palate and their non-cleft peers.

Participants And Intervention: Spectral moment analysis, a quantitative approach to capture the contour of speech spectra, was carried out on speech samples produced by two groups of speakers: (a) speakers with repaired cleft palate (n=14, mean age=11.7 years) and (b) typical speakers (n=10, mean age=11.

Examining the cognitive demands of analogy instructions compared to explicit instructions.

Purpose: In many learning domains, instructions are presented explicitly despite high cognitive demands associated with their processing. This study examined cognitive demands imposed on working memory by different types of instruction to speak with maximum pitch variation: visual analogy, verbal analogy and explicit verbal instruction.

Method: Forty participants were asked to memorise a set of 16 visual and verbal stimuli while reading aloud a Cantonese paragraph with maximum pitch variation.

Consonant accuracy in Mandarin-speaking children with repaired cleft palate.

Objective: To compare the consonant production of Chinese-speaking cleft palate children with perceived hypernasal resonance (PHR) after palatoplasty and those with perceived normal resonance (PNR), and to assess the possible influence of language on articulation.

Setting: Two hospital cleft lip and palate centers in mainland China.

Participants: Thirty-one speakers were allocated into two groups based on perceptual judgment results of their resonance provided by three speech therapists: one group with PNR (n=20, average age=9.