Browsing by Person "Lee, Alice"

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Clicks Produced as Compensatory Articulations in Two Adolescents With Velocardiofacial Syndrome
(2008-07) Gibbon, Fiona; Lee, Alice; Yuen, Ivan; Crampin, Lisa
Objective: To report perceptual and dynamic articulatory electropalatography data on clicks produced as compensatory articulations by two adolescents (S1 and S2) with velocardiofacial syndrome and velopharyngeal dysfunction. Results: The perceptual analysis showed that both speakers produced click substitutions for English targets /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, and S2 additionally produced clicks for /p/, /b/, and /tsh/, /d3/. The adolescents produced a range of clicks, which varied in placement (bilabial, dental, alveolar, palatal), voicing (voiced, voiceless), and nasality (nasal, nonnasal). Measurements from the electropalatography data for lingual clicks revealed two articulatory closures, one in the anterior and another in the posterior region of the hard palate. The data revealed how the two closures were timed precisely to produce the click sound. The clicks involved a complex and highly coordinated sequence of tongue maneuvers similar to clicks in some southern African languages. Conclusions: Clicks are interpreted as compensatory articulations enabling some speakers with velopharyngeal dysfunction to produce plosive and affricate sounds with perceptually salient acoustic bursts in the oral cavity. Clicks as compensatory articulations merit further systematic investigation, and the procedures reported in this study are considered appropriate for such research.
Effect of listeners' linguistic background on perceptual judgements of hypernasality
(Wiley, 2008) Lee, Alice; Brown, S.; Gibbon, Fiona
Background: Many speech and language therapists work in a multilingual environment, making cross-linguistic studies of speech disorders clinically and theoretically important. Aims: To investigate the effect of listeners' linguistic background on their perceptual ratings of hypernasality and the reliability of the ratings. Methods and Procedures: The speech samples were nine Cantonese non-nasal sentences produced by 22 speakers (20 speakers with hypernasality and two speakers with normal resonance). Twenty-four non-expert listeners (twelve Cantonese and twelve English) rated the speech samples using direct magnitude estimation. Outcomes and Results: The Cantonese listeners gave significantly higher ratings to the female speech samples (mean=76.02) than the English listeners (mean=59.24; t=3.189, p<0.05). The difference in direct magnitude estimation ratings between the Cantonese (78.57) and English (70.83) listeners was not significant for the male samples (t=2.097, p>0.05). Despite the difference in numerical ratings between the two groups of listeners, the high correlations between their ratings indicated that they ranked the speech samples in terms of hypernasality severity similarly. Both groups of listeners showed high inter-judge reliability but low intra-judge reliability for rating the two sets of speech samples. There was a significant difference in intra-judge reliability between the Cantonese (r=0.55) and English (r=0.39) listeners for the male samples (t=2.125, p<0.05). Conclusions: Generally, the non-expert Cantonese and English listeners ranked the Cantonese samples in terms of hypernasality in a similar way. The reliability of ratings by non-expert listeners was moderate. The need for further cross-linguistic studies into perceptual evaluations of speech disorders is highlighted. 2008 Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists.
Electropalatography as a Research and Clinical Tool
(American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), 2007) Gibbon, Fiona; Lee, Alice
Lingual contact in selected English vowels and its acoustic consequence
(2007-08) Yuen, Ivan; Lee, Alice; Gibbon, Fiona; This research was supported by BBSRC (grant number BB/E003419/1) to the first author.
This paper provides preliminary data about EPG contact for 3 different vowels in Southern British English (SBE) and Scottish English (SE) across eleven speakers. The EPG data were compared with vowel formants to test the hypothesis that the amount of EPG contact as an indicator of tongue height or anteriority will result in a corresponding change in F1 and F2. The results suggest that Percent Contact varies with the three monopthongs. F1, F2 and F2-F1 difference varies with the amount of Percent Contact.
Normal adult speakers' tongue palate contact patterns for alveolar oral and nasal stops
(Taylor & Francis, 2007-03) Gibbon, Fiona; Yuen, Ivan; Lee, Alice; Adams, Lynne
This study compared tongue palate contact patterns for oral stops (/t/, /d/) with those for the nasal stop /n/ in order to provide normative data for diagnosing and treating individuals with speech disorders. Electropalatographic (EPG) data were recorded from 15 English speaking adults for word initial /t/, /d/ and /n/ in a high and a low vowel context. EPG frames were classified according to three criteria: (1) anterior constriction; (2) bilateral constriction; and (3) zero posterior central contact. Total amount of contact and variability were also measured. The results showed that almost all (99%) stops met Criteria 1 and 3, with fewer articulations (88% of /t/; 83% of /d/ and 55% of /n/) meeting Criterion 2. Although all stops had similar spatial patterns, /t/ and /d/ had more contact and were more likely to have bilateral constriction than /n/. There were no differences in variability between /t/, /d/ and /n/, however. The clinical implications of the results for the management of individuals with speech disorders are discussed.
Perceptual characteristics of Cantonese hypokinetic dysarthria
(2003) Whitehill, Tara L.; Ma, Joan K-Y; Lee, Alice
The aims of this study were to provide a perceptual speech 'profile' for Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria, to examine the reliability of non-expert listeners in perceptual judgements of dysarthric speech, and to investigate cross-language differences in profiles of hypokinetic dysarthria. Participants included 19 speakers with Parkinson's disease and 10 speechlanguage pathologists who served as listeners. Listeners rated 21 speech dimensions, using seven-point interval scales. Mean intralistener agreement was 94.52% and mean interlistener reliability was 0.88 (Cronbach's alpha). Mean scale values (MSV) for each dimension ranged from 3.37 to 1.36. The perceptual profile of Cantonese hypokinetic dysarthria was largely similar to profiles for English and Japanese speakers; notable differences are discussed. Possible reasons for the relatively high reliability obtained are presented.
The national CLEFTNET project for individuals with speech disorders associated with cleft palate.
(Taylor & Francis, 2007-03) Lee, Alice; Gibbon, Fiona; Crampin, Lisa; Yuen, Ivan; McLennen, Grant
Although previous studies have demonstrated the benefits of using electropalatography (EPG) for treating therapy-resistant articulation errors associated with cleft palate, until recently access to this form of treatment has been limited. For the past 10 years, however, the CLEFTNET Scotland project has provided individuals with cleft palate access to EPG therapy. CLEFTNET Scotland represented a novel form of EPG service delivery-it linked the cleft palate centres throughout Scotland to Queen Margaret University College (QMUC) in Edinburgh through an electronic network. EPG data collected in the centres were sent to QMUC, where experts conducted detailed analysis leading to a precise diagnosis of each individual's specific articulation difficulty and suggested therapy guidelines to the specialist speech-language therapists based on their analysis. This form of service delivery has recently extended to include England, Wales and Northern Ireland to form CLEFTNET UK. This paper describes the CLEFTNET projects, discusses orthodontic issues relevant to EPG therapy for individuals with cleft palate, and presents a case study to illustrate how therapy guidelines for speech-language therapists are derived from data analysis.
Tongue palate contact during bilabials in normal speech
(Allen Press Incorporated, 2007) Gibbon, Fiona; Lee, Alice; Yuen, Ivan
Objective: Previous research using electropalatography (EPG) identified a compensatory articulation called bilabial-lingual double articulations. These double articulations were produced for bilabials by some speakers with cleft palate and involved closure at the lips occurring simultaneously with complete tongue-palate constriction. However, no normative English EPG data exist to confirm the abnormal status of these double articulations. Design: This study reports normative data for EPG contact during bilabial closure. Acoustic and EPG data were recorded for bilabials in different vowel contexts. Participants: Eight normal English-speaking adults. Measures: One measure identified complete tongue-palate constriction, and a second measure calculated percent contact. Results: There were no instances of complete tongue-palate constriction, though some EPG contact occurred in the lateral regions of the palate. The vowel context significantly affected the amount of contact present, with /i/ having the most and /a/ having the least amount of contact. Conclusion: Complete tongue-palate constriction during bilabials of the type found in bilabial-lingual double articulations is not a feature of normal English speech and can therefore be considered an abnormal articulation pattern. Speech-language pathologists who use EPG in their clinical work should be aware that some lateral contact during bilabial closure is
Understanding speech production using electropalatography.
(Taylor & Francis, 2007-03) Gibbon, Fiona; Lee, Alice; Yuen, Ivan
The papers in this special issue of Advances in Speech- Language Pathology were originally delivered at the 4th International Electropalatography (EPG) Symposium, held in Edinburgh in September 2005.
Using ultrasound tongue imaging to identify covert contrasts in children's speech
(2017) Zharkova, Natalia; Gibbon, Fiona; Lee, Alice
Ultrasound tongue imaging has become a promising technique for detecting covert contrasts, due to the developments in data analysis methods that allow for processing information on tongue shape from young children. An important feature concerning analyses of ultrasound data from children who are likely to produce covert contrasts is that the data are likely to be collected without head-to-transducer stabilisation, due to the speakers' age. This article is a review of the existing methods applicable in analysing data from non-stabilised recordings. The article describes some of the challenges of ultrasound data collection from children, and analysing these data, as well as possible ways to address those challenges. Additionally, there are examples from typical and disordered productions featuring covert contrasts, with illustrations of quantifying differences in tongue shape between target speech sounds.
Vowel imaging
(Psychology Press, 2012-09-05) Lee, Alice; Zharkova, Natalia; Gibbon, Fiona; Ball, Martin J.; Gibbon, Fiona