The current study examined the effects of two computer-delivered phonological awareness training programs (Earobics Step 1 and Lexia Early Reading) on the early literacy skills of kindergarten and first grade students at risk for reading failure. The study utilized a multi-group pretest-treatment-posttest design. Student participants, who were identified for the study through a school-wide screening, were randomly assigned to one of three groups (i.e., Earobics, Lexia Early Reading, or control), and their progress was monitored throughout a five-week intervention period. Results using an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to examine differences in adjusted mean post-test scores indicated that the Earobics program produced better outcomes than the Lexia and control groups as measured by the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. Results of a hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analysis examining initial status and rates of growth also indicated greater rates of change among the Earobics group when compared with the Lexia and control groups. The Earobics program was shown to be an effective intervention for improving early literacy skills for students at risk for reading failure. Implications of the study for working with early elementary students who show deficits in phonological awareness are discussed.

Submitted by LARISSA APARECIDA PASCHOAL null (larissa.apaschoal@gmail.com) on 2017-05-10T21:32:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Larissa - Dissertação - versão final.pdf: 1292538 bytes, checksum: 23cdaf93be93fbaa87c1e7a44e1535e2 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luiz Galeffi (luizgaleffi@gmail.com) on 2017-05-12T13:40:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 paschoal_la_me_mar.pdf: 1292538 bytes, checksum: 23cdaf93be93fbaa87c1e7a44e1535e2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-12T13:40:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 paschoal_la_me_mar.pdf: 1292538 bytes, checksum: 23cdaf93be93fbaa87c1e7a44e1535e2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-04-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Objetivos: descrever o desempenho ortográfico de crianças no registro dos grafemas que remetem aos fonemas fricativos do Português Brasileiro; verificar a influência do acento na ocorrência de possíveis erros; categorizar a tipologia dos erros encontrados; verificar em que medida os erros mobilizam elementos da classe fonológica das fricativas; e verificar quais traços distintivos se mostrariam como mais, ou como menos, conflitantes no registro dos fonemas fricativos. Método: foram selecionadas 762 produções textuais de crianças que cursaram a 1ª série do Ensino Fundamental em duas escolas públicas do interior paulista. Nessas produções, foram verificadas todas as ocorrências de grafemas que remetiam a fonemas fricativos do Português Brasileiro, na posição silábica de ataque simples. Na sequência, essas ocorrências foram organizadas conforme ocorressem em sílabas pré-tônicas, tônicas, pós-tônicas, monossílabos átonos e monossílabos tônicos. As ocorrências foram classificadas em acertos e erros, e estes últimos foram ainda classificados em: omissões e substituições. Resultados: (1) maior ocorrência de erros em fonemas que apresentavam escrita irregular e de acertos em fonemas com escrita regular; (2) não interferência do acento lexical na ocorrência de erros; (3) maior número de erros que envolveram substituição de grafemas; (4) preponderância de erros que envolveram a substituição de grafemas que remetiam à classe das fricativas; (5) não influência de traços fonológicos na ocorrência de erros. Conclusão: a escrita das crianças estudadas não foi somente influenciada por aspectos fonético-fonológicos, mas, também, por aspectos de outras práticas relacionadas à aquisição da ortografia, como as de letramento. / Objectives: describe the orthographic performance of children in the record of graphemes that refer to Brazilian Portuguese fricative phonemes; verify the influence of the accent on the occurrence of possible errors; categorize typology of the errors found; verify to what extent the errors mobilize elements of the phonological class of fricatives; and verify which distinctive features would appear to be more or less conflicting in the register of fricative phonemes. Methods: 762 textual productions of children who attended the first grade of Elementary School were selected in two public schools in the interior of São Paulo. In these productions, all occurrences of graphemes that refer to fricative phonemes of Brazilian Portuguese were verified in the syllabic position of simple onset. These occurrences were then organized as they occurred in pre-tonic syllables, tonic syllables, post-tonic syllables, atonic monosyllables and tonic monosyllables. The occurrences were classified in hits and errors, and these errors were further classified in omissions and substitutions. Results: (1) greater occurrence of errors in phonemes that presented irregular writing and correct answers in phonemes with regular writing; (2) no lexical accent interference in the occurrence of errors; (3) greater number of errors involving substitution of graphemes; (4) preponderance of errors involving the substitution of graphemes that refer to the class of fricatives; (5) no influence of phonological traits on the occurrence of errors. Conclusion: the writing of the children in this study was influenced not only by phonetic and phonological aspects, but also by aspects of other practices related to the acquisition of spelling, such as literacy.

Submitted by ISABELA DE OLIVEIRA PEZARINI null (isabela.pezarini@gmail.com) on 2017-05-24T01:09:26Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Final - Isabela - 23-05-17.pdf: 1107147 bytes, checksum: 0311407025ded97a7e4daafb560d7a92 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luiz Galeffi (luizgaleffi@gmail.com) on 2017-05-24T16:34:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 pezarini_io_me_mar.pdf: 1107147 bytes, checksum: 0311407025ded97a7e4daafb560d7a92 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-24T16:34:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 pezarini_io_me_mar.pdf: 1107147 bytes, checksum: 0311407025ded97a7e4daafb560d7a92 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-04-24 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Objetivos: descrever o desempenho ortográfico de crianças quanto ao registro de fonemas oclusivos do PB; verificar se a ausência do acento fonológico influencia a ocorrência de possíveis erros na ortografia desses fonemas; classificar o padrão de distribuição desses possíveis erros; classificar a distribuição dos possíveis erros em traços de ponto ou vozeamento; e verificar qual a direção dos traços envolvidos nesses possíveis erros. Métodos: foram analisados 21.049 registros ortográficos de fonemas oclusivos extraídos de 1.064 produções textuais de 76 crianças da 1ª série do Ensino Fundamental em duas escolas públicas do interior paulista. Relativos ao primeiro objetivo: os dados foram divididos em acertos e erros; relativos ao segundo objetivo, os erros foram classificados conforme ocorressem em sílabas acentuadas – tônicas e monossílabos tônicos – e não-acentuadas – pretônicas, postônicas e monossílabos átonos; relativos ao terceiro objetivo, os erros foram classificados, em um primeiro momento, em substituições e omissões, as substituições, por sua vez, foram subclassificados em ortográficas não fonológicas, ortográficas fonológicas e híbridas. As ortográficas fonológicas foram subdivididas, ainda, conforme envolvessem fonemas dentro e fora da classe das oclusivas; relativos ao quarto objetivo, as substituições fonológicas dentro da classe foram classificadas conforme envolvessem traços de ponto ou de vozeamento; e, finalmente, relativo ao quinto objetivo, os traços foram analisados de acordo com a direção da substituição envolvendo tanto ponto quanto vozeamento. Resultados: observou-se, quanto ao primeiro objetivo, maior número de acertos (20.318) quando comparado ao número de erros (729), resultado que sugere significativa estabilidade das crianças (já no primeiro ano de alfabetização) no registro de grafemas que correspondem a fonemas oclusivos; quanto ao segundo objetivo, maior concentração dos erros no interior das sílabas não-acentuadas (440) quando comparado àqueles em sílabas acentuadas (289), que se dá pelo fato de as sílabas não-acentuadas apresentarem características acústicas menos favoráveis à percepção auditiva do escrevente; quanto ao terceiro objetivo, observou-se distribuição dos erros em substituições (523) e omissões (206); nas substituições foram observados erros ortográficos fonológicos (298), híbridos (132) e ortográficos não-fonológicos (93). Extraídas as omissões, que se explicam por variação linguística do tipo *correno, para “correndo”, grande parte das substituições justifica-se pelo fenômeno da transparência ortográfica; ainda quanto ao terceiro objetivo, em relação à distribuição dos erros ortográficos fonológicos, maior ocorrência deles envolvendo fonemas da própria classe das oclusivas (258) quando comparado aos fonemas fora dessa classe (40), que se justifica pelo fato de as crianças já se mostrarem capazes de perceber características fonético-fonológicos que tornam possível a distinção entre fonemas de diferentes classes; quanto ao quarto objetivo, observou-se maior número de erros fonológicos DC que envolveram vozeamento (222) quando comparado aos erros envolvendo ponto (47), resultado que sugere que a aquisição das oclusivas na escrita infantil segue, de certa forma, a trajetória de sua aquisição na fala; por fim, quanto ao quinto objetivo, observou-se, em relação aos erros de ponto, que a maioria envolvia o traço coronal, resultado que vai contramão da literatura, uma vez que se esperava maior instabilidade no traço dorsal; por fim, ainda quanto ao quinto objetivo, em relação aos erros de vozeamento, apesar da diferença numérica, não houve diferença estatística entre as direções das substituições. Conclusão: A análise do desempenho ortográfico global permite entender, quanto à especificidade dos erros, que, além de características fonético-fonológicas relacionadas à classe das oclusivas, a escrita inicial sofre influência de outros fatores, como a transparência/opacidade da escrita desses fonemas e a variação linguística. / Objectives: describe the orthographic performance of children regarding the recording of Brazilian Portuguese occlusive phonemes; verify if the absence of the phonological accent influences the occurrence of possible errors in the orthography of these phonemes; classify the distribution pattern of these possible errors; classify the distribution of possible errors in traits of point or voicing; and check the direction of the traits involved in these possible errors. Methods: 21,049 orthographic records of occlusive phonemes extracted from 1,064 textual productions of 76 children from the first grade of Elementary School were analyzed in two public schools in the interior of São Paulo State. Regarding the first objective: the data were divided into hits and errors; for the second objective, the errors were classified as accentuated syllables - tonics and tonic monosyllables - and unstressed – pre tonic, post tonic and unstressed monosyllables; for the third objective, the errors were initially classified in substitutions and omissions; the substitutions were sub-classified in non-phonological orthographic, phonological orthographic and hybrid. The phonological orthographic was further subdivided as they involved phonemes within and outside the class of occlusives; concerning the fourth objective, phonological substitutions within the class were classified as involving traits of point or voicing; and finally, regarding the fifth objective, the traits were analyzed according to the direction of the substitution involving both point and voicing. Results: a higher number of correct answers (20,318) was observed when compared to the number of errors (729), which suggests a significant stability of children (earlier in the first year of literacy) in the registry of graphemes corresponding to occlusive phonemes; as for the second objective, there was a greater concentration of errors within the unaccented syllables (440) when compared to those in accented syllables (289), which is due to the fact that unaccented syllables present acoustic characteristics less favorable to the auditory perception of the scribe; for the third objective, we observed a distribution of errors in substitutions (523) and omissions (206); in the substitutions, orthographic phonological (298), hybrids (132) and non-phonological orthographic (93) errors were observed. Extracting the omissions which are explained by linguistic variation like “correno” for "correndo" , most of the substitutions are justified by the phenomenon of orthographic transparency; still on the third objective, regarding the distribution of phonological orthographic errors, there was a higher occurrence involving the occlusive phonemes (258) when compared to phonemes outside this class (40), which is justified by the fact that the children already show up able to perceive phonetic-phonological characteristics that make possible the distinction between phonemes of different classes; as to the fourth objective, a greater number of phonological errors within the class involving voicing (222) was observed when compared to errors involving point (47), a result that suggests that the acquisition of occlusives in children's writing follows, to a certain extent, the trajectory of their acquisition in speech; finally, regarding the fifth objective, in relation to the point errors, it was observed that the majority involved the coronal trait, a result that goes against the literature, since greater instability was expected in the dorsal trait; still regarding the fifth objective, in relation to voicing errors, there was no statistical difference between the directions of the substitutions despite the numerical difference. Conclusion: The analysis of the global orthographic performance, regarding the specificity of the errors, allows us to understand that in addition to phonetic-phonological characteristics related to the class of occlusives, the initial writing is influenced by other factors, such as the transparency/opacity of the writing of these phonemes and the linguistic variation. / FAPESP: 2015/03208-7

Nonword repetition (NWR) has demonstrated significant potential as a less-biased language assessment measure for dual language learners (DLLs). However, there are currently no available guidelines for the use of NWR in a clinical setting. The purpose of this preliminary study is to develop initial recommendations for the clinical use of NWR tasks by determining the diagnostic accuracy and optimal cut-off scores for two NWR tasks and scoring methods, and to evaluate the clinical feasibility of NWR as an assessment measure. Participants included 23 DLL students with and without language disorder between the ages of 6 and 8. Spanish and English NWR tasks were administered in school classrooms and scored by percent phonemes correct (PPC) and number of whole words correct. Optimal cut-off scores resulting in the best sensitivity and specificity were calculated for each task and scoring method. Diagnostic accuracy was then compared for each task, combination of tasks, and scoring method. English PPC, Spanish PPC, and combined whole word scores yielded acceptable levels of sensitivity and specificity. Combined PPC scores resulted in excellent specificity, but inadequate sensitivity. Whole word scores for the tasks individually did not approach acceptable diagnostic accuracy. The current findings suggest that NWR can be feasibly implemented in the clinical setting and yield accurate results. English-Spanish whole word scores show potential as an accurate assessment measure for DLL children but should be investigated further. English-Spanish PPC scores appear to be appropriate for ruling out a language disorder, but are insufficient for ruling one in. These results provide preliminary support for the use of NWR tasks in the clinical assessment of DLLs as well as initial recommendations for their administration and interpretation.

The study focuses on three research questions. The first question addresses whether it is possible to improve phonetic perception in English as an L2 for Chinese primary school children speaking Mandarin as an L1, through the didactic methods High Variability Phonetic Training and Onset Rhyme Detection Test. The second question addresses if it is possible to improve phonetic perception over a short period of time, using didactic methods focused on improving phonetic perception during two sessions for each method. The third and last question addresses, if it is one of the two didactic methods, High Variability Phonetic Training and Onset Rhyme Detection Test, is better than the other in a short-term learning situation. Forty-five students participated in the study, divided into three groups; one was a control group. Two groups received treatment, one with the Onset Rhyme Detection Test and the other High Variability Phonetic Training method. All groups conducted a pretest and posttest. The results revealed that the two methods used had some positive effect on the development of phonetic perception for Chinese primary school children. Through didactic methods, it is possible to improve phonetic perception to some extent, even during a short period of time.

Masters of Science / Much work has been done in building systems that can recognise gestures, e.g. as a component of sign language recognition systems. These systems typically use whole gestures as the smallest unit for recognition. Although high recognition rates have been reported, these systems do not scale well and are computationally intensive. The reason why these systems generally scale poorly is that they recognize gestures by building individual models for each separate gesture; as the number of gestures grows, so does the required number of models. Beyond a certain threshold number of gestures to be recognized, this approach becomes infeasible. This work proposes that similarly good recognition rates can be achieved by building models for subcomponents of whole gestures, so-called cheremes. Instead of building models for entire gestures, we build models for cheremes and recognize gestures as sequences of such cheremes. The assumption is that many gestures share cheremes and that the number of cheremes necessary to describe gestures is much smaller than the number of gestures. This small number of cheremes then makes it possible to recognize a large number of gestures with a small number of chereme models. This approach is akin to phoneme-based speech recognition systems where utterances are recognized as phonemes which in turn are combined into words. We attempt to recognise and classify cheremes found in South African Sign Language (SASL). We introduce a method for the automatic discovery of cheremes in dynamic signs. We design, train and use hidden Markov models (HMMs) for chereme recognition. Our results show that this approach is feasible in that it not only scales well, but it also generalizes well. We are able to recognize cheremes in signs that were not used for training HMMs; this generalization ability is a basic necessity for chemere-based gesture recognition. Our approach can thus lay the foundation for building a SASL dynamic gesture recognition system.

No description available.

<p>Predmet istraživanja je utvrđivanje efikasnosti kori&scaron;ćenja britanskih humorističkih serija u nastavi engleskog kao stranog jezika, radi usavr&scaron;avanja britanskog izgovora učenika osnovno&scaron;kolskog uzrasta. Cilj ove disertacije je sticanje naučnog saznanja o efikasnosti primene britanskih humorističkih serija u nastavi engleskog kao stranog jezika, prevashodno saznanja o mogućnostima usavr&scaron;avanja izgovora onih engleskih fonema kojih nema u fonolo&scaron;kom sistemu srpskog jezika, kao i fonema koje su karakteristične za izgovorne razlike između britanske i američke varijante engleskog jezika</p> / <p>The object of this research is to determine the efficiency of the use of British sitcoms in teaching English as a foreign language, in order to improve the British English pronunciation of primary school students. The aim of this thesis is to acquire scientific knowledge about the effectiveness of the implementation of British sitcoms in teaching English as a foreign language, primarily the knowledge about the potentials of improving the pronunciation of those English phonemes that are not in the phonological system of the Serbian language and those phonemes that represent the pronunciation differences between British and American varieties of the English language.</p>

En situation de perception audiovisuelle de la parole, comme lors des conversations face-àface,nous pouvons tirer partie des informations visuelles fournies par les mouvements orofaciauxdu locuteur. Ceci améliore l’intelligibilité du discours. L'objectif de ce travail était dedéterminer si ce « bénéfice audiovisuel » permet de mieux identifier les phonèmes quin’existent pas dans notre langue. Nos résultats révèlent que l’utilisation de l’informationvisuelle permet de surmonter les difficultés posées par la surdité phonologique dont noussommes victimes lors d'une présentation auditive seule (Etude 1). Une étude EEG indique quel’apport des informations visuelles au processus d’identification de phonèmes non natifspourrait être dû à une modulation précoce des traitements effectués par le cortex auditifprimaire (Etude 2). En présentation audiovisuelle les phonèmes non natifs donnent lieu à uneP50, ce qui n’est pas observé pour les phonèmes natifs. Il semblerait également quel'expérience linguistique affecte l'utilisation des informations visuelles puisque des bilinguesprécoces semblent moins aptes à exploiter ces indices pour distinguer des phonèmes qui neleur sont pas familiers (Etude 3). Enfin, l’étude de l’identification de consonnes plosivesnatives avec une tâche de dévoilement progressif nous a permis d’évaluer la contributionconjointe et séparée des informations auditives et visuelles (Etude 4). Nous avons observé quel’apport de la modalité visuelle n’est pas systématique et que la prédictibilité de l’identité duphonème dépend de la saillance visuelle des mouvements articulatoires du locuteur. / During audiovisual speech perception, like in face-to-face conversations, we can takeadvantage of the visual information conveyed by the speaker's oro-facial gestures. Thisenhances the intelligibility of the utterance. The aim of this work was to determine whetherthis “audiovisual benefit” can improve the identification of phonemes that do not exist in ourmother tongue. Our results revealed that the visual information contributes to overcome thephonological deafness phenomenon we experience in an audio only situation (Study 1). AnERP study indicates that this benefit could be due to the modulation of early processing in theprimary auditory cortex (Study 2). The audiovisual presentation of non native phonemesgenerates a P50 that is not observed for native phonemes. The linguistic background affectsthe way we use visual information. Early bilinguals take less advantage of the visual cuesduring the processing of unfamiliar phonemes (Study 3). We examined the identificationprocesses of native plosive consonants with a gating paradigm to evaluate the differentialcontribution of auditory and visual cues across time (Study 4). We observed that theaudiovisual benefit is not systematic. Phoneme predictability depends on the visual saliencyof the articulatory movements of the speaker.

The general aim of this thesis was to test the effects of paralinguistic (emotional) and prior contextual (topical) cues on perception of poorly specified visual, auditory, and audiovisual speech. The specific purposes were to (1) examine if facially displayed emotions can facilitate speechreading performance; (2) to study the mechanism for such facilitation; (3) to map information-processing factors that are involved in processing of poorly specified speech; and (4) to present a comprehensive conceptual framework for speech perception, with specification of the signal being considered. Experi¬mental and correlational designs were used, and 399 normal-hearing adults participated in seven experiments. The main conclusions are summarised as follows. (a) Speechreading can be facilitated by paralinguistic information as constituted by facial displayed emotions. (b) The facilitatory effect of emitted emotional cues is mediated by their degree of specification in transmission and ambiguity as percepts; and by how distinct the perceived emotions combined with topical cues are as cues for lexical access. (c) The facially displayed emotions affect speech perception by conveying semantic cues; no effect via enhanced articulatory distinctiveness, nor of emotion-related state in the perceiver is needed for facilitation. (d) The combined findings suggest that emotional and topical cues provide constraints for activation spreading in the lexicon. (e) Both bottom-up and top-down factors are associated with perception of poorly specified speech, indicating that variation in information-processing abilities is a crucial factor for perception if there is paucity in sensory input. A conceptual framework for speech perception, comprising specification of the linguistic and paralinguistic information, as well as distinctiveness of primes, is presented. Generalisations of the findings to other forms of paralanguage and language processing are discussed.