The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea

The Acoustical Society of Korea (한국음향학회)
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The Speech Characteristics of Korean Dysarthria: An Experimental Study with the Use of a Phonetic Contrast Intelligibility Test

음소대조 검사방법을 이용한 마비말장애인의 말소리 명료도 특성

  • Kim Soo Jin (Department of Communication Disorders, Korea Nazarene University) ;
  • Kim Young Tae (Interdisciplinary Program of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University) ;
  • Kim Gi Na (Department of English Language and Literature, Hoseo University)
  • Published : 2005.03.01
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Abstract

This study was designed to suggest an assessment tool for analyzing the characteristics of Korean phonetic contrast intelligibility among dysarthric individuals. The intelligibility deficit factors of phonetic contrast in Korean dysarthric patients were analyzed through stepwise regression analysis. The 19 acoustic-phonetic contrasts proposed by Kent et al. (1999) have been claimed to be useful for clinical assessment and research on dysarthria. However, the test cannot be directly applied to Korean patients due to linguistic differences between English and Korean. Thus, it is necessary to devise a Korean word intelligibility test that reflects the distinct characteristics of the Korean language. To identify the speech error characteristics of a Korean dysarthric group, a Korean word list was audio-recorded by 3 spastic, 4 flaccid, and 5 mixed type of dysarthric patients. The word list consisted of monosyllabic consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) real word pairs. Stimulus words included 41 phonemic contrast pairs and six triplets. The results showed that the percentage of errors in final position contrast was higher than in any other position. Unlike the results of previous studies, the initial-position contrasts were crucial in predicting the overall intelligibility among Korean patients.

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References

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