Auditory-Perceptual Judgement of Speech-Language Pathologists in Fricative Distortion by EPG Task

Abstract

Objectives: In a clinical setting, a ‘trained ear’ is the essentials for speech–language pathologists (SLPs) because most SLPs rely on the auditory - perceptual method during assessment and treatment for speech difficulties. However, transcribing distortion errors using only auditory-perceptual judgement is a difficult task. This study investigated the auditory– perceptual ability in terms of distortion errors for pre and present SLPs.Methods: Sixty pre and present SLPs completed a survey, then performed a perceptual judgement task which was manufactured by electropalatography (EPG). The task consisted of 30 questions, including distorted (dentalized, palatalized, lateralized) and normal speech samples of Korean fricative /s/ with different types of vowels (/ɑ/, /u/) and lengths (1-syllabled, 2- syllabled, sentence).Results: There was no significant difference in the distortion task among three groups. All participants had the highest score in “dentalization”, the lowest in “lateralization”, and all distortion types were perceived better in the /u/ context than /ɑ/. Also, SLPs tended to judge “lateralization” errors as “normal articulation” and many of the participants perceived “palatalization” as “lateralization”.Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that active auditory training for SLPs is necessary to improve auditory perceptual ability, and suggests that EPG could be a useful instrument for the auditory training program.

Spectral moment analysis of distortion errors in alveolar fricatives in Korean children*

“…치조 마찰음(/ᄉ/, /ᄊ/)은 혓날을 올려 치조와 혓날 사이의 좁 은 틈 사이로 마찰성 소음을 지속해서 산출해야 하기 때문에 조 음방법적으로 복잡하여 ) 다른 말소리보다 완전 습득 연령이 높고, 치조 마찰음의 왜곡 오류는 말소리 발달의 완성이라고 여겨지는 7세까지도 남아있는 것으로 보고되고 있 다 (Kim & Seong, 2018;Kim et al, 2020). 왜곡(distortion)이란 우 리나라 언어에 없거나 있더라도 특정 문맥에서는 출현하지 않 는 변이음(allophones)으로 목표 음소를 산출하는 현상을 말한 다 (Kim et al, 2021). 왜곡은 목표 말소리의 음운적 표상은 온전 히 존재하기 때문에 음운 단계의 문제라기보다 목표 말소리의 운동 실행에 대한 어려움 또는 잘못된 습관 등에 의해 초래될 수 있다 (Dodd et al, 2018;Kim et al, 2020).…”