First Advisor

David Ritchie

Term of Graduation

Fall 2000

Date of Publication

10-31-2000

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.) in Speech Communication: Speech and Hearing Sciences

Department

Communication

Language

English

Subjects

Intelligibility of Speech, Grammar, Comparative and general -- Syntax

DOI

10.15760/etd.4156

Physical Description

1 online resource (2, v, 54 pages)

Abstract

Speech intelligibility is the term used to describe the degree to which an individual speaker is understood by both familiar and unfamiliar listeners. There are many factors that influence an individual's intelligibility, including (but not limited to) variations in phonology, grammar, rate of speech, and vocal features. Most research has focused on the articulation and phonological influences that impact speech intelligibility. Perhaps for this reason, treatment methods for improving speech intelligibility generally have targeted an individual's phonological production skills. Additional research is necessary to understand more about each of the areas of language production that may be influencing intelligibility. This may provide insight into more comprehensive treatment methods for helping individuals with low intelligibility.

The purpose of the present study was to determine if there is a correlation between intelligibility ratings and syntactical development. The study sought to answer the following questions: (a) Is there a significant positive or negative correlation between the children's percentage of intelligibility and their Developmental Sentence Score (DSS)?, and (b) Are there significant differences among four different intelligibility levels (ranging from mild to severe)?

Thirty-seven preschool aged children were the subjects for this study. The children had all been participants in a previous study (Gordon-Brannan, 1993) and were identified as having age appropriate language skills with no presence of neurological, motor, physical, or significant hearing impairments.

Results of the first research question, using the Pearson product moment analysis (r = 0.67 and r2 = .45, p = 0.001), indicate a moderately significant positive correlation between the intelligibility and DSS scores. This finding suggests that the DSS can account for almost half (45%) of the variability of the intelligibility scores. Results of the second research question, using post-hoc Tukey analyses, revealed that the least intelligible group had significantly poorer DSS scores in comparison to the other groups (p < .05).

The outcome of these analyses indicate that grammatical skills account for some of the variability with respect to speech intelligibility. Children with intelligibility characterized as severe (below 70%) appear to have greater deficiencies in grammatical development than children with higher intelligibility.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44707

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