Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, April 30, 1998." Also available in print.

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, May 14, 1999." Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy). "June 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 211-235). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Despite the fact that speech-language pathologists do not develop the theories underlying the principles and procedures used in the clinic, speech and language clinicians are ethically obliged to apply the "best" possible theory in their practice. Recently phonologists have been developing a theory of nonlinear phonology. Application of this theory to cross-linguistic data and to child language data has shown that what appeared to be idiosyncratic or difficult to account for using previous theoretical formulations can be neatly explained using a nonlinear phonological explanation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of further extending the application of nonlinear phonological principles to the field of speech-language pathology. Two levels defined by the theory, segmental and prosodic, were investigated in a six-month-long intervention programme with a set of phonologically delayed twins (aged 5;6 at the outset of the project). Each twin was assigned to an experimental condition motivated by one of these levels, or tiers. In each condition, intervention goals were determined by parameters of the theory; the segmental condition contrasted features "higher" versus "lower" in the feature hierarchy, while the prosodic condition contrasted moraic with onset-rime descriptions of syllable/word shape. Using twins as subjects also allowed the twin aspect of language acquisition and speech-language intervention to be explored. Results of the phonological intervention study revealed that nonlinear phonology provides a viable framework for assessing and determining goals for phonological remediation. A comparison of progress in therapy indicated that one twin acquired therapy goals faster than the other. An investigation of the differential progress of the twins allowed conclusions to be drawn regarding social awareness and success in phonological therapy. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-160).

The purposes of the present study were: 1) to provide descriptions, both phonological and acoustic, of the vowel system of a child who exhibited a phonological disturbance in his vowel system, and 2) to examine the effects that intervention targeting consonants would have on his vowel system. No specific hypotheses were proposed, although it was implied that there would be some effect. The subject, S, was one of six subjects in a doctoral research study investigating the application of non-linear phonological theory to the assessment and remediation of developmental phonological disorders. The data were selected from the initial assessment session and a reassessment after two blocks of intervention. Both phonological and acoustic analyses of the data were performed. Acoustic measurements included the fundamental frequency and the frequencies of the first and second formants for each phone. The data showed that S had a large phonetic inventory of vowels with a high proportion of vowel errors. Phonemes exhibited considerable variability but one primary phone could usually be identified. Significant in the phonological description were the following: 1) a high front vowel, a back rounded vowel, a low vowel, and a central vowel were among those most accurately produced by S, 2) there were a significant number of errors in the non-high, unrounded phonemes, and 3) /u/ exhibited a high proportion of errors. In general, errors were not sensitive to consonantal context. Acoustically, while the formant patterns for each phone differed from the others, S's vowels were found to be different in some ways from normal. Specifically, the frequency of F2 for his back vowels is higher than expected and the frequency of Fl for /a/ is lower than expected. In addition to some differences in formant frequency, the acoustic data on S's vowels show much more variability than normal. Changes in the data occurred, both phonologically and acoustically, between the pre-and post-treatment assessment Changes included: 1) improvement in the accurate production of /u/, 2) shifts in the phonetic representation of non-high, unrounded vowels, 3) a decrease in random phonemic error, 4) a decrease in the second formant frequency of back vowels and an increase in first formant frequency of /a/, 5) a decrease in variability of both first and second formant frequency, and 6) a decrease in fundamental frequency. While it was possible to describe differences between the pre- and post-treatment data, it was not possible to ascribe these changes solely to intervention. It is difficult to know whether intervention had a direct effect on vowel production or whether the changes which occurred were more general effects of intervention or simply natural events, coincidental with the intervention program. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

This clinical project sought to examine two different approaches to the treatment of functional articulatory disorders and to implement these two approaches in the actual management of two articulation disordered clients. The two approaches selected were the traditional auditory-stimulus method (Van Riper, 1972) and the sensory-motor approach (McDonald, 1964b) to testing and treatment. It was the intention of this project to compare the results of articulation intervention of the two methods.