Minimal research exists regarding the effectiveness of pause time as an independent strategy for communication partners to support the communication of young people who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). To date, pause time has been investigated as component of a group of interaction strategies only; therefore its validity as an interaction strategy for communication partners is unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of variation in pause time as an interaction strategy when communicating with young people who use AAC. Eight participants aged 8:11 to 20:08 years (mean 16.02 years), who used a variety of AAC systems, participated in the study. Three pause time conditions were trialed during a scripted shared storybook reading task: two, 10 and 45 seconds in which to initiate a response. A total of 27 conversational turn opportunities were provided to participants over the course of the task. If no response was initiated within the pause time, the examiner moved on to the next turn opportunity. If a response was initiated, the participant was provided time to finish their turn. Turns were analyzed for percentage of responses made to a turn opportunity, mean length of utterance in words (MLU), percentage of assertive conversational acts made and the modes of communication used. Findings of the study indicated that participants were more likely to respond to a turn opportunity when their communication partner allowed a longer pause time. Additionally, a longer pause time resulted in a higher MLU. Participants did not use a greater number of assertive conversational acts or use their AAC system over other modes of communication when provided a longer pause time. Results are discussed in relation to the current AAC literature and implications of the findings for clinicians and communication partners of young people who use AAC.

The aim of this research was to investigate the breathing patterns of children aged 5-9 years with asthma as they read aloud stories of increasingly difficulty. Participants were 11 children diagnosed with moderate to severe asthma recruited from an out-patient clinic and 11 gender- and age-matched controls recruited from local schools. Non-contact respiratory monitoring methods were employed to yield acoustic recordings during three non-reading tasks and three reading aloud tasks which increased in difficulty. Measurements included breathing rate, pause time in speech, and time ratio between inspiration between inspiration and expiration (I/E ratio). Pauses that occurred during the reading tasks were classified as either occurring at grammatical junctions where pausing during oral reading would be expected, or at ungrammatical junctions, where pausing was associated with either needing to breath, a reading mistake and/or upon recognition of an unknown word. The acoustic measures were recorded using a free audio editor and recorder programme (Audacity version 2.0.3’) on a Notebook laptop with an inbuilt microphone. The main result indicated that 82% of children with asthma breathed more slowly when reading books that were difficult for them, and this was negatively associated with asthma severity (p=0.046). The findings demonstrated that children with asthma appear to cope when reading more difficult materials by breathing more slowly, pausing for longer ([F(1, 16) = 5.454, p = 0.033]) and increasing expiration time. The current research is the first of its kind and provides a base for future studies to investigate the relationship between breathing and the reading of children with asthma. Questions remain whether this relationship is related to low achievement in reading. Future research to confirm, disconfirm or otherwise is necessary to add to the sparse literature on the breathing of children with asthma while reading aloud.

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國立政治大學碩士論文提要 研究所別：語言學研究所 論文名稱：中國學生閱讀及朗讀時靜默停頓停頓的研究：國語與英語比較 指導教授：楊懿麗 教授 研究生：沈君怡 論文提要內容：（共一冊，40972字，分五章17節，並扼要說明內容，共203字） 本論文主要探討中國學生以第一語言（華語）和第二語言（英語）來朗讀及說故事時，五個時間變項的不同。五個時間變項包括：停頓時間、停頓比例、發聲速度、說話速度、及語句長度。我們希望藉由各時間變項的變異及相關理論的探討，可以對使用不同語言及不同說話形式的說話歷程作一個了解。 從各時間變項的變異可知，受試者說華語較說英語流利，朗讀較說故事流利。這樣的結果顯示停頓的確反映了不同的說話歷程。 / Abstract The purpose of the present study is to analyze temporal variables in two languages and two speech styles. The “temporal variables” here include pause duration, pause percentage, articulation rate, speech rate, and utterance length. Besides those temporal variables, two pause locations are observed: “between” or “within” major constituents (sentences and clauses). The two languages under discussing are Mandarin Chinese and English, and the two speech styles are reading and story-telling. We hope to understand the processes of reading and story-telling in Mandarin and English. The data of the present study are speech from sixteen males and sixteen females of Cheng-chi University. All of them are native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, and started to learn English at junior high school. They are asked to read a story either in Chinese or in English and tell the story on their own. Also, for fear that subjects’ performance may be influenced by the order of reading and story-telling, half of the same group are asked to read before telling story, and the other tell the story before reading. So we have two independent variables: language and style. The design of the experiment is 2×2. There are three important results in our study. 1. Pause duration is shorter, pause percentage is lower, articulation rate and speech rate is faster, and utterance length is longer in Mandarin than in English. 2. As far as speech style is concerned, pause is shorter and fewer in reading than in story-telling, with slower articulation rate and speech rate, and longer utterance. 3. More pauses are found to appear between major constituents in Mandarin than in English, in reading than in story-telling. However, fewer pauses are found within major constituents in Mandarin than in English; in reading than in story-telling.