• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.83-95
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• 2006

This study attempts to suggest a criterion of Korean language development. For this purpose we investigated speaking rates of the spontaneous utterances produced by 144 children, aged 3 to 8. We analyzed each subject's speaking rate and its relevance with speaker's age, gender and utterance length. To determine the relative contributions of variables to the speaking rate, multiple regression was conducted. Results of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) The mean and maximum values of the speaking rate increased with the growth of age. (2) A statistically significant increase in speaking rate appeared at two-year intervals. (3) There was no significant difference between male and female groups in the speaking rate. (4) The multiple regression analysis has shown that along with the speaker's age, the utterance length(the mean number of syllables per utterance) is also important in estimating the speaking rates.

• MALSORI
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• no.67
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• pp.61-77
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to blow the characteristics of disfluency in childhood. The subjects were 144 normal children at the age of between 3 to 8 years who lived in Seoul. All the subjects provided spontaneous conversational speech samples during free-play interactions with their friends. We investigated the patterns and the frequency of disfluency and its relevance with subject's age, speaking rate and MLU(mean length of utterance). The results of this study can be summarized as follows. (1) There was no difference in the frequency of disfluency with the speaker's age or speaking rate. (2) Interjection was the most frequently occurring pattern of disfluency. (3) Prolongation, revision, interjection increased with age while part-word repetition, single-syllable word repetition, multi-syllable word repetition decreased gradually. (4) A significant effect of MLU on the frequency of disfluencies were demonstrated. The regression analysis has shown that more disfluencies occurred in utterances of children whose MLU is longer.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.22
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• pp.303-327
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• 2011

This study aims to uncover the learner's language proficiency shown in the writing data of Chinese elementary/intermediate level learners. Language proficiency of the learners acquired by error analysis provides only partial information, and thus this study analyses the interlanguage of Korean learners in terms of 'Mean Length of Utterance, MLU' to discover the overall aspect of learner's language proficiency more symmetrically. The analysis of vocabulary area is to be enforced after generally studying the learner's language development aspect in accordance with MLU-m(orpheme) and MLU-(w)ord found in compositions by Chinese speaking Korean language learners. In terms of MLU, it has been slightly increased as the level of proficiency between elementary level and intermediate level learners; however, the morpheme seemed to be difficult to use, since the difference between Chinese learners and Korean university students has been notably shown. Vocabulary diversity, using aspect for each word class, and using aspect of the predicate are studied for vocabulary area; more various and numerous vocabulary tend to be used as the level of proficiency increases. In terms of predicate use, Chinese learners use less numerous vocabulary types.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.158-164
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• 2005

Melody intonation therepy (MIT) is to improve the linguistic aspects of the verbal utterance for aphasic patients utilizing the intact right brain. It is applied to the aphasic patients with good comprehension, poor fluency, and little available speech are thought to be ideal candidates. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of Korean Melody intonation therapy (kMIT) in patients with non-fluent aphasia. Five male non-fluent aphasic patients were participated in this study. Average ages were 49.9 years old. Each therapy took 45-50minutes once a week for six months. Aphasic Screen lest (RISS) was used to assess language parameter such as Auditory comprehension, oral expression, reading, writing and calculation ability before and after kMIT. Mean of Length Utterance, verbal intelligibility and articulation disorder were assessed also. Computerized Speech Lab was used to assess the acoustic characteristics of aphasic patients before and after kMIT. The results are as follows : 1) Auditory comprehension, oral expression, reading, writing and calculation ability of the subjects increased after UH'. However, only oral expression showed significant difference (p<0.05). 2) Mean of Length Utterance of five patients generally increased after Un. 3) After kMIT, verbal intelligibility increased and showed significant difference (p<0.05). 4) Misarticulation rate generally decreased after m. 5) Voice Onset Time of the alveolar lenis /t/ and velar lenis /k/ gradually decreased after kMIT. 6) However, intonation pattern were increased gradually in yes'no question after kMIT.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.43-56
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to analyze the differences of preschoolers' utterance features by their gender and play situation type. For this purpose, a total of 40 5-year-old children participated in this study. Dyad were participated in each play session during 10 minutes. The play session was videotaped and the videotaped data were transcribed by CBS(2014). The collected data were analyzed by using a independent t-test and paired t-test. The main results are as follows. First, girls' MLU-e, MLU-w, MLU-m were longer than that of boys in a familiar play situation. Second, preschoolers' MLU-w was longer in an unfamiliar play situation than in familiar ones and preschoolers' type-token ratio were higher in an unfamiliar play situation than in familiar ones. Implications for the importance of preschoolers' spontaneous speech are discussed.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.1-12
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• 2008

This study investigated the development of complex sentences in the early utterances of Korean-Chinese children. The subjects were 47(20 2-year-old, 15 3-year-old, and 12 4-year-old) Korean-Chinese children living in China. Each child's spontaneous natural speech during interaction with his/her caregiver was videotaped for about 30 minutes and analyzed for Korean complex sentences using Kim's(2000) categories and Korean Computerized Language Analysis 2.0(2000). Results showed that older children were higher in Mean Length of Utterance and in number and frequency of word types than younger children. The language development of bilingual children was delayed compared with monolingual children but the developmental sequence between bilingual and monolingual children was similar.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.157-168
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• 2001

The limited capacity model has been used to explain linguistic interactions and trade-offs that occur in children's speech. The purpose of the present investigation is to explore the interrelationship of MLU (as an index of syntactic development) and fluency in the spontaneous speech of normal children. Twenty normal children's (ten girls and ten boys, aged 36-48 months) spontaneous speech samples were obtained during free-play interactions with their mothers or other adults. The results indicated that the MLU of disfluent utterances were significantly longer than that of fluent utterances. Also, disfluencies occurred more frequently in longer utterances than in shorter utterances. In addition, the utterances where disfluencies occurred more than 2 times were longer than those where disfluencies occurred once. These results imply that the increase of MLU appear to affect not only the occurrence of disfluent utterances, but also the number of disfluencies within the utterances. In other' words, these findings show that there are trade-off effects between MLU and fluency. This is discussed within a limited capacity framework.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.9-20
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• 2014

In this paper, we propose an automatic fluency evaluation algorithm for English speaking tests. In the proposed algorithm, acoustic features are extracted from an input spoken utterance and then fluency score is computed by using support vector regression (SVR). We estimate the parameters of feature modeling and SVR using the speech signals and the corresponding scores by human raters. From the correlation analysis results, it is shown that speech rate, articulation rate, and mean length of runs are best for fluency evaluation. Experimental results show that the correlation between the human score and the SVR score is 0.87 for 3 speaking tests, which suggests the possibility of the proposed algorithm as a secondary fluency evaluation tool.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.60 no.7
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• pp.227-231
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• 2017

Purpose: This study aimed to verify the safety of low-dose topiramate on language development in pediatric patients with migraine. Methods: Thirty newly diagnosed pediatric patients with migraine who needed topiramate were enrolled and assessed twice with standard language tests, including the Test of Language Problem Solving Abilities (TOPs), Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test, Urimal Test of Articulation and Phonology, and computerized speech laboratory analysis. Data were collected before treatment, and topiramate as monotherapy was sustained for at least 3 months. The mean follow-up period was $4.3{\pm}2.7months$. The mean topiramate dosage was 0.9 mg/kg/day. Results: The patient's mean age was $144.1{\pm}42.3months$ (male-to-female ratio, 9:21). The values of all the language parameters of the TOPs were not changed significantly after the topiramate treatment as follows: Determine cause, from $15.0{\pm}4.4$ to $15.4{\pm}4.8$ (P>0.05); making inference, from $17.6{\pm}5.6$ to $17.5{\pm}6.6$ (P>0.05); predicting, from $11.5{\pm}4.5$ to $12.3{\pm}4.0$ (P>0.05); and total TOPs score, from $44.1{\pm}13.4$ to $45.3{\pm}13.6$ (P>0.05). The total mean length of utterance in words during the test decreased from $44.1{\pm}13.4$ to $45.3{\pm}13.6$ (P<0.05). The Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test results decreased from $97.7{\pm}22.1$ to $96.3{\pm}19.9months$, and from $81.8{\pm}23.4$ to $82.3{\pm}25.4months$, respectively (P>0.05). In the articulation and phonology validation in both groups, speech pitch and energy were not significant, and all the vowel test results showed no other significant values. Conclusion: No significant difference was found in the language-speaking ability between the patients; however, the number of vocabularies used decreased. Therefore, topiramate should be used cautiously for children with migraine.