The study examined the typical development of early literacy in a group of typically developing preschool Sepedi first language children residing in Atteridgeville, by determining their performance on a protocol of early literacy tasks. The following aspects were included: written language awareness, narrative abilities, phonological awareness, letter name knowledge, grapheme-phoneme correspondence and literacy motivation. The performance of the participants on the various tasks was used to describe the early literacy development of the target population and to identify relevant risk criteria that may indicate delayed early literacy development in the target population. The performance of participants on these tasks differed from those of other participants in local and international studies, which underscores the necessity of culturally sensitive procedures for identifying delays in the early literacy development of children. The influence of factors such as the mother’s level of education, gender, participants’ level of engagement in literacy activities and participants' current academic performance on the development of early literacy skills were also investigated. Based on the results as well as other indications from the literature, possible risk factors for delayed early literacy development for this group are listed. / Dissertation (M (Communication Pathology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / unrestricted

The programme for the segmentation of a speech into fonems was created as a part of the master´s thesis. This programme was made in the programme Matlab and consists of several scripts. The programme serves for automatic segmentation. Speech segmentation is the process of identifying the boundaries between phonemes in spoken natural languages. Automatic segmentation is based on vector quantization. In the first step of algorithm, feature extraction is realized. Then speech segments are assigned to calculated centroids. Position where centroid is changed is marked as a boundary of phoneme. The audiorecords were elaborated by the programme and a operation of the automatic segmentation was analysed. A detailed manual was created to the programme too. Individual used methods of the elaboration of a speech were in the master´s thesis briefly descripted, its implementations in the programme and reasons of set of its parameters.

Foreign words, such as names, locations or sometimes entire phrases, are a problem for any system that is meant to convert graphemes to phonemes (g2p; i.e.converting written text into phonetic transcription). In this thesis, we investigate both rule-based and neural methods of phonetically transcribing English words found in Icelandic text, taking into account the rules and constraints of how foreign phonemes can be mapped into Icelandic phonology. We implement a rule-based system by compiling grammars into finite-state transducers. In deciding on which rules to include, and evaluating their coverage, we use a list of the most frequently-found English words in a corpus of Icelandic text. The output of the rule-based system is then manually evaluated and corrected (when needed) and subsequently used as data to train a simple bidirectional LSTM g2p model. We train models both with and without length and stress labels included in the gold annotated data. Although the scores for neither model are close to the state-of-the-art for either Icelandic or English, both our rule-based system and LSTM model show promising initial results and improve on the baseline of simply using an Icelandic g2p model, rule-based or neural, on English words. We find that the greater flexibility of the LSTM model seems to give it an advantage over our rule-based system when it comes to modeling certain phenomena. Most notable is the LSTM’s ability to more accurately transcribe relations between graphemes and phonemes for English vowel sounds. Given there does not exist much previous work on g2p transcription specifically handling English words within the Icelandic phonological constraints and it remains an unsolved task, our findings present a foundation for the development of further research, and contribute to improving g2p systems for Icelandic as a whole.

This thesis describes a designed and implemented system for efficient storage, indexing and search in collections of spoken documents that takes advantage of automatic speech recognition. As the quality of current speech recognizers is not sufficient for a great deal of applications, it is necessary to index the ambiguous output of the recognition, i.\,e. the acyclic graphs of word hypotheses -- recognition lattices. Then, it is not possible to directly apply the standard methods known from text--based systems. This paper discusses an optimized indexing system for efficient search in the complex and large data structures which are the output of the recognizer.

Background: The difficulties for people to understand and perceive speech in second languages in the presence of background noise is well documented in the literature. Similar difficulties have been reported in bilinguals. Consequently, the speech-in-noise tests can be used as a diagnostic tool to assess an individual's speech perception in noisy environments and plan effective hearing rehabilitation but it has less precision in the case of people whose first language is different from the tested language. On the other hand, the newly developed Situated Phoneme Test (SiP) might be a promising diagnostic method for evaluating speech perception in noise. The advantage is that the test person does not have to repeat the words as in the TiB test - something that makes it difficult for people with a different first language - and therefore the source of error of subjective assessment by the audiologist is eliminated. Aim: The aim of the present work is to evaluate the effectiveness of the SiP-test, for a group of people with Arabic as their first language, by examining the results of the SiP-test and the results of the conventional TiB test in relation to expected results for those who have Swedish as first language. A secondary aim is to evaluate people's experiences of using the TiB -test and the SiP-test. Materials and methods: Speech perception in noise was investigated in 32 normal-hearing individuals using the TiB test and the SiP-test. Common to all participants was that they had Arabic as their first language, moved to Sweden after the age of 8 and had good knowledge of the Swedish language according to the results of the language test they completed. The results of the TiB -test and the SIP-test were analyzed and compared with the expected values for people whose first language is Swedish. In addition, two diagnostic methods were evaluated by the participants using a questionnaire, specially designed for this purpose. Results: Overall, the SiP-test results for this group of people with Arabic as first language were similar or better (M = 83.1, SD = 4.31) than expected (M = 75, SD = 0) for those whose first language is Swedish, while the mean value for the TiB -test results was worse (M = 72.9, SD = 2.06) than expected (M = 84, SD = 0) for native Swedishspeakers. The TiB test results showed that no participant managed to reach the expected values based on people whose first language is Swedish. The individuals reported, with the use of a questionnaire, that the SiP-test was easier to perform (n = 18). Participants mentioned " the repeating of the words" as the more difficult for the TiB-test (n = 32) and "the use of the touch screen" as the easier for the SiP-test (n = 30). Conclusions: The results of the present study showed that SIP-test can be an accurate and reliable diagnostic method for the evaluation of speech perception in noise in non-native speakers, compared to the conventional TiB-test. SIP-test proved to be an easy, safe, realistic and objective diagnostic tool, based on the results and the reports of the participants who completed the test. Further research in individuals with various degrees and types of hearing loss, as well as similar studies in populations having other languages than the Arabic as its first language are needed in order to fully investigate the use and clinical applications of the SIP-test as a valuable part of an integral hearing investigation on the everyday clinical practice. / Bakgrund: Svårigheterna för personer att förstå och uppfatta tal på andraspråket i närvaro av bakgrundsbrus är väldokumenterade i litteraturen. Liknande svårigheter har rapporterats även hos tvåspråkiga. Följaktligen kan tal-i-brus-tester (TiB) användas som ett diagnostiskt verktyg för att bedöma en individs taluppfattning i bullriga miljöer och planera en effektiv hörselrehabilitering men det har mindre precision när det gäller personer som har ett annat förstaspråk än det testade språket. Det nyutvecklade Situated Phoneme Test (SiP) kan eventuellt vara en lovande diagnostisk metod för att utvärdera taluppfattning i buller. Fördelen med SiP-testet är att testpersonen inte behöver upprepa orden som i TiB-testet - något som gör det svårt för personer med ett annat förstaspråk - och därav elimineras felkällan av subjektiv bedömning från audionomen. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att utvärdera effektiviteten av SiP-testet, för en grupp av personer med arabiska som förstaspråk, genom att undersöka resultaten av SiP-testet och resultaten av det konventionella TiB-testet i relation till förväntade resultat för dem som har svenska som förstaspråk. Ett sekundärt syfte är att utvärdera personernas erfarenheter av att använda TiB-testet och SiP-testet. Metod och material: Taluppfattningen i brus undersöktes hos 32 normalhörande individer med hjälp av TiB-testet och SiP-testet. Gemensamt för samtliga deltagare var att de hade arabiska som förstaspråk, hade flyttat till Sverige efter 8 års ålder och hade goda kunskaper i det svenska språket enligt resultatet av det språktest de genomförde. Resultaten av TiB- och SiP-testerna analyserades och jämfördes med de förväntade värdena för personer som har svenska som förstaspråk. Dessutom utvärderades två diagnostiska metoderna av deltagarna med hjälp av ett frågeformulär, speciellt utformat för detta ändamål. Resultat: Sammantaget var SiP-testresultaten för denna grupp av personer med arabiska som förstaspråk liknande eller bättre (M = 83.1, SD = 4.31) än förväntat (M = 75, SD = 0) för de som har svenska som förstaspråk, medan medelvärdet för TiB-testresultaten var sämre (M = 72.9, SD = 2.06) än förväntat (M = 84, SD = 0) för de som har svenska som förstaspråk. TiB-testet resultatet visade att ingen deltagare lyckades nå de förväntade värdena baserade på personer som har svenska somförstaspråk. Flest av deltagarna rapporterade, genom frågeformuläret, att SiP-testet var lättare att utföra (n = 18). Deltagarna nämnde ”att upprepa orden" som det svårare för TiB-testet (n = 32) och "att använda pekskärmen" som det lättare för SiP-testet (n = 30). Slutsatser: Resultaten av den föreliggande studien visade att SiP-test kan vara en korrekt och tillförlitlig diagnostisk metod för att utvärdera taluppfattningen för personer med svenska som andraspråk. SiP-test visade sig vara ett enkelt, säkert, realistiskt och objektivt diagnostiskt verktyg, baserat på resultaten och rapporterna från deltagarna som genomförde testet. Ytterligare forskning på individer med olika grader och typer av hörselnedsättning, såväl som liknande studier i populationer som har andra språk än arabiska som sitt förstaspråk behövs för att fullständigt undersöka användningen och kliniska tillämpningar av SIP-testet som en värdefull del av en integrerad hörselundersökning om den kliniska vardagen.

The availability of the stenographic manuscripts of Astrid Lindgren have sparked an interest in the creation of a language model for stenography. By its very nature stenography is low-resource and the unavailability of data requires a tool for using normal data. The tool presented in this thesis is to create stenographic data from manipulating orthographic data. Stenographic data is distinct from orthographic data through three different types manipulations that can be carried out. Firstly stenography is based on a phonetic version of language, secondly it used its own alphabet that is distinct from normal orthographic data, and thirdly it used several techniques to compress the data. The first type of manipulation is done by using a grapheme-to-phoneme converter. The second type is done by using an orthographic representation of a stenographic alphabet. The third type of manipulation is done by manipulating based on subword level, word level and phrase level. With these manipulations different datasets are created with different combinations of these manipulations. Results are measured for both perplexity on a GPT-2 language model and for compression rate on the different datasets. These results show a general decrease of perplexity scores and a slight compression rate across the board. We see that the lower perplexity scores are possibly due to the growth of ambiguity.

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This research is concerned with an investigation into the development of a formal diagnostic assessment tool for spelling in the foundation phase. A literature study and information acquired from educators provided information to compile a suitable spelling list that could be used as a diagnostic tool in the foundation phase. A self-designed questionnaire was administered to fifty educators Who provided their expert opinion regard the spelling list. This was followed up by second questionnaire that was based on the analysis and interpretation of the first. The Delphi-technique was applied to this investigation. The study was complete when consensus was reached among the educators with regard to which words should be included in the final spelling list. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

S'ha investigat molt tant els mecanismes neuronals bàsics de l'audició com l'organització psicològica de la percepció de la parla. Tanmateix, en ambdós temes n'hi ha una relativa escassetat en quant a modelització. Aquí describim dos treballs de modelització. Un d'ells proposa un nou mecanisme de millora de selectivitat de freqüències que explica resultats de experiments neurofisiològics investigant manifestacions de forward masking y sobretot auditory streaming en l'escorça auditiva principal (A1). El mecanisme funciona en una xarxa feed-forward amb depressió sináptica entre el tàlem y l'escorça, però mostrem que és robust a l'introducció d'una organització realista del circuit de A1, que per la seva banda explica cantitat de dades neurofisiològics. L'altre treball descriu un mecanisme candidat d'explicar la trobada en estudis psicofísics de diferències en la percepció de paraules entre bilinguës primerencs y simultànis. Simulant tasques de decisió lèxica y discriminació de fonemes, fortifiquem l'hipòtesi de que persones sovint exposades a variacions dialectals de paraules poden guardar aquestes en el seu lèxic, sense alterar representacions fonemàtiques . / Though much experimental research exists on both basic neural mechanisms of hearing and the psychological organization of language perception, there is a relative paucity of modelling work on these subjects. Here we describe two modelling efforts. One proposes a novel mechanism of frequency selectivity improvement that accounts for results of neurophysiological experiments investigating manifestations of forward masking and above all auditory streaming in the primary auditory cortex (A1). The mechanism works in a feed-forward network with depressing thalamocortical synapses, but is further showed to be robust to a realistic organization of the neural circuitry in A1, which accounts for a wealth of neurophysiological data. The other effort describes a candidate mechanism for explaining differences in word/non-word perception between early and simultaneous bilinguals found in psychophysical studies. By simulating lexical decision and phoneme discrimination tasks in an attractor neural network model, we strengthen the hypothesis that people often exposed to dialectal word variations can store these in their lexicons, without altering their phoneme representations. / Se ha investigado mucho tanto los mecanismos neuronales básicos de la audición como la organización psicológica de la percepción del habla. Sin embargo, en ambos temas hay una relativa escasez en cuanto a modelización. Aquí describimos dos trabajos de modelización. Uno propone un nuevo mecanismo de mejora de selectividad de frecuencias que explica resultados de experimentos neurofisiológicos investigando manifestaciones de forward masking y sobre todo auditory streaming en la corteza auditiva principal (A1). El mecanismo funciona en una red feed-forward con depresión sináptica entre el tálamo y la corteza, pero mostramos que es robusto a la introducción de una organización realista del circuito de A1, que a su vez explica cantidad de datos neurofisiológicos. El otro trabajo describe un mecanismo candidato de explicar el hallazgo en estudios psicofísicos de diferencias en la percepción de palabras entre bilinguës tempranos y simultáneos. Simulando tareas de decisión léxica y discriminación de fonemas, fortalecemos la hipótesis de que personas expuestas a menudo a variaciones dialectales de palabras pueden guardar éstas en su léxico, sin alterar representaciones fonémicas.