The results indicate that the basis of an intelligibility deficit in dysarthria is likely to depend on the native language of the speaker and listener. Additional research is required to explore other potential predictor variables, as well as additional language comparisons to pursue cross-linguistic considerations in classification and diagnosis of dysarthria types.

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Alveolar fricative sounds /s/ and /s'/ are learned last for normal children in the speech development process for Koreans. These are especially difficult to articulate for hearing-impaired children often causing articulation errors. The acoustic phonetic evaluation uses testing tools to provide indirect and object information. These objective resources can be compared with standardized resources on speech when interpreting the results of a test. However, most previous studies in Korea did not consider acoustic studies that used the spectrum moment values of hearing-impaired children. Therefore, this study was conducted to compare the characteristics of hearing-impaired children's pronunciation of fricative sounds using spectrum moment values. For this purpose, the study selected a total of 10 hearing-impaired children (5 boys and 5 girls) currently in 3rd or 5th grade and attending one of the elementary schools in Seoul or Gyeonggi-do. For the selection process, their age, type of hearing aid, implantation of hearing aid (CI) before two years of age, hearing capacity (dB) before and after wearing the hearing aid, duration of speech rehabilitation, and time of learning alveolar fricative sounds were all considered. Also, 10 normal children (5 boys and 5 girls) were selected among 3rd or 5th grade students attending one of the elementary schools in Seoul or Gyeonggi-do. The subjects were asked to read the carrier sentence, "I say _______," including a list of 12 meaningless syllables composed of CV and VCV syllables, including alveolar fricative sounds /s/ and /s'/ and vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/. The recorded resources were processed through the Time-frequency Analysis Software Program to measure M1 (mean), M2 (variance), M3 (skewness), and M4 (kurtosis) of the fricative noise. No significant differences were found when comparing spectrum threshold values in the acoustic phonetic characteristics of hearing-impaired children and normal children in alveolar fricative sound pronunciation according to vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/, alveolar fricative sounds /s/ and /s'/, and syllable structure (CV, VCV) other than, for M3 in the comparison of groups according to disability. In the comparison of syllable structures, there were statistically significant differences in M1, M2, M3, and M4 with clinical significance. However, there was no significant difference in results when comparing the alveolar fricative sounds according to the vowels.

This research compared the features of respiration and phonation between practical musicology students and general male students, according to their smoking status. Participants of this research are 15 practical musicology male students attending ○○ university and 16 general ○○○ university students. The participants, both non-smokers and smokers with 5-years of smoking history have no history of voice disease in any case and have normal cognitive functions. The results indicated that, first, there is not a notable difference in the respiratory activity status(FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC), regardless of major and smoking status. In MPT, even though there is no significant difference in accordance with their majors, considering smoking status, the smoker group was shorter than non-smoker group significant difference statistically (p<.01). Second, the divisions of participants' major did not show significant difference in Fo, jitter, shimmer, and NHR in the vowel prolongation task. However, the smoker group showed a significantly higher degree of jitter and shimmer than the non-smoker group (p<.05) as Fo and NHR shows no difference. In the case of VRP, maximum frequency and frequency range of the practical group are significantly higher than normal group statistically (p<.001). Moreover, although the difference of the minimum frequency shown at the statistic is not significant, practical group showed a higher tendency of frequency than normal group (p=.051). In conclusion, even though there is no difference in respiratory activity between the smoker group and non-smoker group, the MPT of the smoker group is shorter than that of non-smoker group. In addition, the smoker group showed a higher degree of jitter and shimmer than the non-smoker group. MPT is related to the valve action of vocal fold that passes through the glottis. Thus, it is interpreted that the smoker group has a lower quality of voice and valve action of the vocal fold. Also, the practical group has a higher degree of maximum frequency and frequency range than the normal group. This research can function as basic data for vocal characteristics for the majors in relation to the voice-specializing.

The purposes of this paper is to study the characteristics of compared to the speakers voice without depression and speakers with depression, and to propose a objective method for the measurement of the therapeutic effects as well as for diagnostics of depression based on the characteristics. The voice samples obtained from 11 female speakers with depression, aged from 20 to 40, diagnosed as having major depressive disorder by an psychiatrist were compared with those from 12 normal controls with matched sex, age, height, weight, education, smoking, and drinking. The voice samples are taken by a portable digital recorder(TASCAM DR-07, Japan) and analysed using the MDVP(Multi-Dimentional Voice Program) software module from CSL(Computerized Speech Lab, kay elemetrics, co, model 4100). The result of the investigation are as following. First, the average speaking fundamental frequency and loudness range of the speakers with depression group was statistically significantly lower than that of the control group. The pitch range of the control group was rather higher than that of the speakers with depression group, but without statistical significance. Overall speech rates have no statistical difference between two groups. Second, the average speaking fundamental frequency and loudness range have statistically significant negative correlation with Beck Depression Inventory, ｉ.e. more severe depression exhibits lower average speaking fundamental frequency and loudness range. Other vocal parameters such as pitch range and overall speech rate have no statistically meaningful correlations with Beck Depression Inventory.