In this paper we present an algorithm that makes use of information contained in syllable lattices to significantly reduce the classification error rate of a children’s speech reading tracker. The task is to verify whether each word in a reference string was actually spoken. A syllable graph is generated from the reference word string to represent acceptable pronunciation alternatives. A syllab...

French beginning readers might rely on syllables during reading acquisition. However, no in-depth developmental study has been carried out to determine how and when the syllable becomes this prelexical and segmental unit used in the time course of reading acquisition. We recruited 800 French-speaking children distributed in grade 1-5. We used a lexical decision task in a visual masked priming p...

Behavioral variability is important for motor skill learning but continues to be present and actively regulated even in well-learned behaviors. In adult songbirds, two types of song variability can persist and are modulated by social context: variability in syllable structure and variability in syllable sequencing. The degree to which the control of both types of adult variability is shared or ...

1 Preliminaries Theories of phonology include an inventory of basic elements, such as segments, tones, stress, features, and gestures, and a model that accounts for their distribution and realization. The phonological context is taken to be organized into higher-order prosodic constituents, which structure and constrain the realization of phonological elements. Moving from elements to their dis...

Word reduction by weak syllable omission is a fairly common phenomenon in several populations, including normally developing children, children with Specific Language Impairment, and adults with aphasia. A recent study (Carter & Clopper, submitted) has shown that normal adults reduce words using strategies similar to those used by the above-mentioned populations and that these strategies vary t...

Introduction: This research was planned to determine some verbal-auditory skills (verbal-auditory short memory and phonological awareness) that have the closest relationship with speech and language development in 5-year-old children. Method: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 400 children of pre-school classes affiliated to Education and Welfare organizations in Semnan city were select...

In this paper, syllable-based prosody modelings of pitch contour and syllable duration for isolated Mandarin words are proposed. In the syllable pitch contour model, three main affecting factors of tone, syllable position in word, and inter-syllable coarticulation are considered. These three affecting factors are assumed to be independent and additive. Similarly, in the syllable duration model,...