Biomedical subjects

G J Ochsner

Publications and source records attributed to G J Ochsner.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1985

Distinctive-feature analyses of the speech of deaf children.

22 children aged 8.5 through 15.5 yrs with HTLs greater than or equal to 90 db in the better ear spoke a carrier phrase before each of 41 monosyllables containing each an initial and a final consonant (23 consonants were represented). Each S repeated the 41-word list 10 times. Speech samples were recorded simultaneously but independently in audio-only and in audio-visual modes, and transcribed by 3 judges using each mode separately. Percent correct speaker-subjects' utterances of target consonants in initial and in final word-positions were scored for presence or absence of distinctive features according to the systems of Chomsky and Halle (1968) and of Fisher and Logemann (1971). Consistently higher correct feature usage was noted for target consonants in the initial rather than in the final word-position for both systems. Further, higher scores were obtained when transcribers could see as well as hear the speaker, but correct usage of a feature was not uniformly a function of the visibility of that feature. Finally, there was no significant increase in correct feature usage as a function of speaker age.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1984

Speech intelligibility of deaf speakers and distinctive feature usage.

Speech samples (41 CNC monosyllables) of 22 deaf children were analyzed using two distinctive-feature systems, one acoustic and one physiologic. Moderate to high correlations between intelligibility scores by listener judges vs correct feature usage were obtained for positive as well as negative features of both systems. Further, higher correlations between percent-correct feature usage scores vs listener intelligibility scores were observed for phonemes in the initial vs final position-in-work regardless of listener-judge experience, feature system, or presentation mode. These findings suggest that either acoustic or physiologic feature analysis can be employed in describing the articulation of deaf talkers. In general, either of these feature systems also predicts with fair to good accuracy the intelligibility of deaf speakers as judged by either experienced or inexperienced listeners. In view of the appreciably higher correlations obtained between feature use and intelligibility scores in initial compared to final position-in-word, however, caution should be exercised with either of the feature systems studied in predicting the intelligibility of a deaf speaker's final phoneme.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1983

Listener judges and the speech intelligibility of deaf children.

Two listener groups, one experienced and the other inexperienced in listening to deaf speakers, were asked to recognize speech sounds in word contexts presented in two modes: auditory only and auditory-visual. In contrast to previous studies, the experienced and inexperienced listener groups performed similarly. The one exception occurred for speech sounds in the final position presented auditory visually where the experienced listeners' performance surpassed that of inexperienced listeners. For both groups, performance in correct phoneme identification was better in the auditory-visual mode of presentation. Furthermore, and interaction between the position-in-word and the mode of stimulus presentation was present in both groups. In the auditory-only task, listeners correctly identified more target phonemes when they were initial rather than final position in a word. With supplemental visual information, listener performance increased our phonemes in both positions within a word, although the increase was greater for final position phonemes.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1981

Language modality performance patterns in aphasia.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe the performance of 20 aphasic subjects across the four language modalities of auditory comprehension, verbal expression, reading, and writing. Subtests from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination and the Porch Index of Communicative Ability were administered to each subject. Results indicated that aphasia differentially affects performance in the four language modalities investigated. In this study, aphasic subjects as a group demonstrated variability in the degree of difficulty experienced in auditory comprehension, verbal expression, reading, and writing for both single words and short connected units. Furthermore, there was a consistent pattern of performance differences across modalities regardless of the length of the stimulus. This modality performance pattern is presented and plausible explanations are discussed.

Adult↗