EFFECTS OF CHANGES IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SPEECH AND THE EXTERNAL SIDE-TONE LEVEL ON THE ORAL READING RATE OF STUTTERERS AND NON-STUTTERERS

110 Pages·04.879 MB·English

by  ROBINSON, FRANK BENNETT

EFFECTS OF CHANGES IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SPEECH
AND THE EXTERNAL SIDE-TONE LEVEL ON THE ORAL READING RATE
OF STUTTERERS AND NON-STUTTERERS
Dissertation
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the
Graduate School of the Ohio State
University
By
FRANK BENNETT ROBINSON, B.A., M.S
The Ohio State University
1951
Approved by
Adviser
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION ................................... 1
II. THE PROBLEM ..................... 16
The Hypotheses ............................... 17
Definition of Terras...........................17
III. PROCEDURES ......................................19
Apparatus . . ............................... 21
Stimuli ......................................gg
Subjects ......................................gg
Presentation . . . ..................... g5
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ..................g9
Study Number One .............................40
Study Number Two .......................... 51
Study Number Three ........ . . . . . 61
Summary and Discussion .................. 77
V. CONCLUSIONS ........................ . . . . . . 85
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................ 90
APPENDIX A. Instructions for Readers ............. 97
APPENDIX B. Sample Reading Passage ............... 98
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iii
CHAPTER PAGE
, APPENDIX C. Passage A.............................. 99
Passage B.............................. 99
Passage C................................ 100
PassageD . . . . . . . . . . ........... 101
Passage E................................ 101
Passage F.......... 102
. Passage G.................................103
‘ AUTOBIOGRAPHY ................ - 104
iv
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE PAGE
I. Summary of Analysis of Variance: Mean
Differences Among Numbers of Words
Read in One Minute Attributable to
Passages and Subjects for 16 College-
age Non-stutterers Reading Seven Factual
Prose Passages Each Containing 800
Phonemes in the First 225 Words . . . . . . 34
II. Summaries of Four Analyses of Variance:
Mean Differences Among the Numbers of
Words Read per Minute Attributable to
Conditions and Subjects for the A-B-C-D
and E-A-F-G Series of Experimental Con­
ditions for 21 Stutterers and 21 Non­
stutterers ................................. 41
III. Mean Numbers of Words Read per Minute by
21 Stutterers and 21 Non-stutterers in
Experimental Conditions A, B, C, D, E,
F, and G; Measures Arranged According
to Conditions, Order, and Passages . . . . 44
IV. Summaries of Four Analyses of Variance:
Mean Differences Among the Numbers of
Words Read per Minute Attributable to
Order and Passages for Experimental Con­
ditions A, B, C, D, E, F, and G for 21
Stutterers and 21 Non-stutterers . . . . 47
V. Summaries of Analyses of Variance: Mean
Differences Among the Numbers of Audible
Blocks in One Minute of Reading Attribu­
table to Experimental Conditions A, D, E,
and G, Subjects, Order, and Passages for
16 Stutterers ............................ 53
VI. Mean Numbers of Audible Blocks in One
Minute of Reading in Conditions A, D, E, and
G for 16 Stutterers; -Measures Arranged
According to Experimental Conditions, Order,
and Passages............................... 54
V
TABLE PAGE
VII. The Order Arrangement for Four Stutterers
Reading Four Passages in Experimental
Conditions A, D, E, and G ................. 56
VIII. Summaries of Analyses of Variance: Mean
Differences Among, the Numbers of Words
per Minute Attributable to Experimental
Conditions A, D, E, and G, Subjects,
Order, and Passages for 16 Stutterers . . . 59
IX. Mean Numbers of Words per Minute Read by
16 Stutterers in Experimental Conditions
A, D, E, and G; Measures Arranged Accord­
ing to Conditions, Order, and Passages . . 60
X. Summaries of Analyses of Variance: Mean
Differences Among the Numbers of Words
Read per Minute Attributable to Condi­
tions, Order, and Passages for Two Non-
stutterers and Three Stutterers Who
Repeated Experimental Conditions A, B, C,
D, E, F, and G Seven Times . . . . . . . . 65
XI. Mean Numbers of Words per Minute Read by
Two Non-stutterers and Three Stutterers
Repeating Experimental Conditions A, B, C,
D, E, F, and G Seven Times; Measures
Arranged According to Conditions, Order,
and Passages for Each Subject ........... 65
XII. Summaries of Analyses of Variance: Mean
Differences Among the Words Read per
Minute Attributable to Conditions and
Repeated Conditions for Two Non-stutter­
ers and Three Stutterers Who Repeated
Experimental Conditions A, B, C, D, E, F,
and G Seven Times ........................ 68
XIII. Mean Numbers of Words per Minute Read by
Two Non-stutterers and Three Stutterers
Repeating Experimental Conditions A, B, C,
D, E, F, and G Seven Times; Measures
Arranged According to Conditions# and
Repeated Conditions for Each Subject .. .. 73
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LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE PAGE
1. Plot of the Acoustic Characteristics
of the Seven Experimental Conditions . . . 20
2. Diagram of Apparatus and Arrangement
for Calibration of a Power Level
Recorder ................................. 23
3. Diagram of Apparatus and Arrangement
for Establishing a Reference Level . . . . 25
4. Diagram of Apparatus and Arrangement
for Establishing the Speaker's
Monitoring System . . . 31
5. Diagram of Experimental Apparatus and
Arrangement ............... . . . . . . 37
6. Mean Numbers of Words Per Minute Read
by 21 Stutterers and 21 Non-stutterers
in Experimental Conditions A, B, C, D,
E, F, and G ............................ 45
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Voice communi cat ion re quires a source of speech sounds,
a transmitting medium, and a listener. In these communica­
tion systems, the source is a human being producing a series
of sounds. The sounds appear as organized sequences of pho­
nemes that vary rapidly from instant to instant in frequency
characteristics and sound pressure level. The individual
sounds appear early as a part of the infant’s general
behavior (37). They are practiced, along with others that
are later discarded, during much of the first year of life.
Gradually, as the child’s preceptive abilities develop and
he becomes increasingly aware of speech as a communicative
tool, the sounds converge into organized units that approxi­
mate those he hears from others. The pattern of speech
becomes acceptable when it does not deviate from that of
other people enough to (a) call attention to itself, (b)
hinder or prevent communication, or (c) create emotional
problems in the speaker (48). The acquisition and contin­
ued productions of acceptable speech depend upon complicated
processes. Van Riper (49) states:
Mothers, as well as fathers, miss almost com­
pletely the most fascinating part of the child’s
entire development— the growth of his speech.
More complicated than walking, more human than
eating, the mastery of talking is probably going
to be, for all time, his greatest accomplishment.
1
In the normal process of learning to talk, the co-ordi­
nation of several systems of the human body is necessary.
Apparently one of these is the neurological. Gray and Wise
(21) write:
The ability to speak is based upon incredibly
nice adjustments of the nervous system. The
utterance of a single word, as simple as "apple",
involves the coordination of scores of muscles
in lips, tongue, velum, larnyx, thorax and
abdomen. Each muscle must move in exact sequen­
tial order, neither a split second too soon nor
too late, lest the word be not properly pro­
nounced .
Another system presumably important in the learning of
speech is that involving the sense of hearing. Children
learn to talk by imitating the speech of others. In this
process, hearing serves not only to inform the speaker about
another individual’s sounds but also to provide information
about his own speech. The speech act may be disturbed either
by hearing conditions that prevent proper reception from
another person or that affect the sounds the speaker is
producing and hearing himself. An example of the relation
between speech and hearing occurs in the case of children
who are born deaf. They are neither able to receive speech
to imitate nor to monitor their own vocal efforts. They do
learn to talk, but the speech is imperfect. Hudgins and
Numbers (26) found the most frequent, consonant errors among
the deaf to involve the voiced-unvoiced distinction, com­
pound consonants and blends, and the inadequate production
of consonants that begin a syllable. They also found vowel
•substitutions and mal-artioulation of diphthongs to be the
most marked of the vowel-type errors. Voelker (50) observed
that deaf children '’showed little more than half as great
an average maximum pitch variation as did the normals for
the same sentence". In the same report he commented on the
rate of speech for the deaf, stating that only about 15 per­
cent of the deaf children who were studied spoke 90 or more
words per minute. Hudgins (25), comparing the speech coor­
dinations of deaf and normal subjects, discovered the speech
of the deaf "to be slow and labored, characterized by exces­
sively nasal." Rawlings (41) conducted a similar study.
Her findings agreed with those of Hudgins. In addition, she
reports that the deaf show"Improper function of consonants
with consequent addition of extra syllables between abutting
consonants." The results of these studies indicate that the
acquisition of acceptable speech depends, in part, upon an
adequate ability to receive auditory stimuli. In instances
in which the hearing is not so severely affected as in the
child born deaf, but is nevertheless deviant, difficulties
in acquiring speech may also be noted. Carrell (15) admin­
istered pure-tone audioaafctrio tests to 61 children with
articulation problems and found them to be inferior when
compared with the results for an equal number of children
whose speech was not marked by articulation problems. He
stated:
A high percentage of the sound substitutions
may be explained on the basis of acoustic
properties whioh make them difficult to per­
ceive and discriminate These sounds
are, in general, perceived more accurately
by the normal speaker.
Sullivan (46) found a greater incidence of hearing loss
among speech-defective children than among the non-defective.
Gaines (20) reported evidence to suggest that the speech
defects of children with cleft palates are due, in part, to
hearing loss. Plummer (59) compared the abilities of college
students with hearing losses and those with normal hearing
to discriminate between fricatives, plosives, and affricates.
He found a positive correlation between extent of hearing
loss and total number of errors. He concluded, however,
that the ability or inability to discriminate between the
sounds accurately was not a function of any specific fre­
quencies. Carhart (15) presented a review of the litera­
ture on hearing and speech and wrote of the non-significance
of the findings. He reported a study by Hall (25) who found
a non-significant difference between groups of functional
articulation oases and normal speakers on an audiometrio
test. Although the evidence is inconclusive that hearing
loss and speech defects are always associated, the results
do indicate a relationship in some instances. More definite
answers may result from better methods for obtaining infor­
mation about the onset of the hearing loss,
factors other than hearing acuity may also intrude to
disturb the acquisition or maintenance of acceptable speech.