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Early writing (i.e. young children's emerging skills prior to the onset of skilled writing) provides important foundations for literacy; however, its components are not evenly understood, assessed, or supported. Transcription skills (handwriting/spelling) are emphasized, while other aspects of composing are often sidelined. Understanding multiple composing components, including transcription, is critical. This study, examining a large corpus of composing samples (N = 394 samples) across two writing tasks, explores composing using a holistic conceptual frame and includes components of transcription in context (handwriting and spelling), connection (relationship between pre- and post-writing verbalizations), and discourse (quantity of ideas expressed). The results demonstrate variable skills (38%-41% of samples using scribbling and drawing; 63%-68% demonstrating connection between pre- and post-writing verbalizations) and further demonstrate that children express more ideas prior to writing, compared to following writing, on average (M = 3.48-4.12 ideas in pre-writing verbalization; M = 2.60-3.13 in post-writing verbalization), suggesting that many children transform and shorten their writing naturalistically and without prompting. Relationships between components were inconsistent (transcription and connection significantly related, ps < 0.05; other relationships were nonsignificant, ps > 0.05). The study provides insights into children's writing processes and has implications for instruction and assessment.

This study analyses the impact of certain cognitive processes on the writing of words in languages with different orthographic consistency (Spanish and Arabic) in the first and second years of Primary Education. One hundred twenty-eight schoolchildren from Ecuador and 109 from Algiers participated in this study. All the participants were aged between 6 and 7 years old, came from the middle classes, and had no special educational needs. We evaluated all the participants for word writing, knowledge of letters, phonological awareness, rapid automatised naming (alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric), and phonological memory. We performed descriptive-exploratory analyses and bivariate and multivariate regressions for the writing of words in each language. The results show that most of the cognitive variables considered do not contribute equally to the explanation of word writing in both languages at 6 and 7 years of age. However, in each language, at these ages, similar variables contribute to the explanation of word writing. These results have important implications for educational practice, as well as the explanatory theory of writing acquisition.

Background: South Africa's PIRLS 2021 outcomes revealed that learners struggle with comprehension. The reasons for poor reading need to be identified and addressed to stem this challenge. Aim: This study assessed Sesotho Grade 4 learners' knowledge of simple and complex letter sounds, their oral reading fluency and the relationship to their oral reading comprehension. Setting: Data were collected by testing 103 Grade 4 Sesotho home language learners in five schools. Method: Early Grade Reading Assessment instruments adapted for Sesotho were used, which included simple and complex letter sound knowledge tests and an oral reading fluency test with six comprehension questions. Results: Firstly, the results show that most of the sampled Grade 4 Sesotho learners could identify only 33.01 of the 70 single-letter sounds and 19.52 of 40 complex letter sounds. Secondly, most learners struggled to correctly pronounce single-letter and single-syllable function words with simple letter sounds. Thus, learners could only read 30.54 words correct per minute (wcpm). Lastly, significant positive correlations between complex letter sounds like diagraphs and trigraphs, reading accuracy and oral reading comprehension were revealed. Conclusion: Knowledge of letter sounds is vital for decoding alphabetic languages with shallow orthographies, which follow the phonological route for processing written texts. It facilitates accurate decoding, which is a prerequisite for reading fluency and comprehension. Contribution: There is a need for Sesotho evidence-based and adequately paced phonics programmes to systematically teach the knowledge of letter sounds in the foundation phase to strengthen reading fluency for comprehension.

Background: Phonetic transcription is a core skill of speech and language therapists/pathologists (SLT/Ps) for clinical assessment of speech sounds and/or errors, and linguists for investigation of phonetic phenomena in various languages; hence, it is included in the curriculum of the corresponding degree programme. Many experts and course instructors have discussed their opinions on different aspects of phonetic transcription teaching and/or reported their own training programmes. However, no review has systematically summarized the types of expert recommendations and training methodology reported in the literature. Such information is important for mapping the knowledge gaps, refining current teaching and planning further research. Aims: To systematically summarize (1) the materials and procedures for delivering and evaluating phonetic transcription training programmes, and (2) the opinions from experts in phonetic transcription teaching regarding but not limited to the content, rationale(s), format and structure, and timing of teaching phonetic transcription of typical speech and/or disordered speech reported in the literature. Methods & Procedures: A scoping review was carried out by following the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology. PubMed, EBSCOhost and Web of Science were searched and citation searching of included papers was completed. The included papers were divided into training programme reports, of which data (e.g., type and number of speech stimuli used, type and number of learners, outcome measures) were charted, and expert opinion papers, analysed using content analysis. Main contribution: A total of 565 studies were retrieved. After excluding duplicates and irrelevant papers and merging two sources that reported the same training, a total of 23 sources on training programmes and six opinion papers were analysed. Most training were for English and for SLT/P students, with some for the linguistics students. There are variations in the training content (with phonetic transcription practice as the main procedure), delivery mode (some presented via websites or computer software), stimuli (audio recordings of typical adults and children with speech disorders were most used), feedback (mostly immediate feedback using answer keys) and outcome measures (mainly transcription accuracy of learners and user opinions). Content analysis of opinion papers determined five main categories: rationale for training; aspects of the delivery of training; transcription; problem areas noted; and strategies/resources. Conclusions & Implications: Implications and considerations for teaching are discussed, along with recommendations for research in the design of evidence-based training. The findings can contribute to the development of general guidelines about phonetic transcription training in educational programmes and the establishment of pre-registration competencies.

Background: Speech and language therapists (SLTs) regularly use phonetic transcription to record and analyse typical and disordered speech. Phonetic transcription is highly demanding of auditory perceptual skills so researchers are sceptical about its accuracy and reliability. The literature describes how phonetic transcription is prone to auditory illusions and biases, such as a preference to transcribe speech sounds from the transcriber's own language. Few empirical research studies have calculated agreement amongst transcribers where a range of agreement scores have been reported (51%-97%). There is a consensus that agreement rates decrease as phonetic detail increases. Vowels and consonants are characterised by different perceptual features within the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) so they may differ in agreement rates, and thus far there is contradictory evidence as to whether vowels or consonants are more agreed upon. Transcription agreement studies to date have most commonly recruited phoneticians rather than SLTs so further research is warranted to determine transcription agreement amongst SLTs and its impact on clinical practice. Aims: The study's primary aim was to calculate agreement scores from a group of English-speaking SLTs who transcribed disordered speech samples in an ecologically valid setting. The study also sought to contribute to the pre-existing contradictory evidence base regarding whether vowels or consonants may be more agreed upon by comparing their agreement scores. The researcher aimed to comment on SLTs' use of diacritics and non-native speech symbols (symbols not included in the English phonetic inventory) in terms of their frequency and agreement of use. By analysing transcriptions, the study aimed to discuss the impact transcription variability has on speech sound error patterns and thus its impact on clinical decision-making such as diagnosis, choice of intervention and therapy targets. Methods: Twelve paediatric SLTs were recruited via a convenience sample at two National Health Service trusts, two of whom were specialists in Speech Sound Disorders (SSDs). Participants transcribed 16 words from a video of a boy with disordered speech completing the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP, Dodd et al., 2006) from a telehealth appointment. The use of diacritics and non-English IPA symbols were manually analysed. A classic agreement score was calculated for each target word using a Python script, and then for vowels and consonants in isolation. Datasets were manually analysed to determine whether differences in transcription resulted in the identification of different speech sound error patterns. The researcher considered the implications this had within clinical practice. Results: The average classic agreement score was 56.3%. Consonants were more agreed upon than vowels with agreement scores of 62.8% and 48.6%, respectively. Nine participants (75%) used diacritics (most commonly length marks) and eight participants (67%) transcribed non-native IPA symbols at least once in their datasets, but generally with low frequencies and agreements amongst their use. Transcriptions captured the occurrence of typical and atypical error patterns but only three error patterns, out of the 20 identified, were present in all 12 participants' transcriptions. Conclusions: The agreement score of 56.3% questions the accuracy and reliability of transcription amongst SLTs which is an essential skill of the profession. The findings highlight SLTs should be more cautious of interpreting vowels than consonants given lower agreement rates. The frequency of use of non-native symbols and diacritics was relatively low which could reflect a low accuracy of their use or reduced confidence in transcribing these. The study discussed how variations in transcriptions can impact phonological and phonetic analysis, which in turn can influence clinical decision-making such as diagnosing SSDs, selecting further diagnostic assessments and choosing therapy targets and interventions. The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists-endorsed transcription guidelines (Child Speech Disorder Research Network, 2017) could be revised to convey realistic expectations of SLTs' transcription skills, or SLTs should be offered more training to improve transcription skills to meet current expectations. Other suggestions to improve transcription accuracy are discussed such as via instrumental methods, yet these come with their own limitations such as practicality, costs and need for specialist training.

Practicing pronunciation through language learning systems incorporating Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology has been effective in helping improve foreign language pronunciation. One of the ASR affordances is that it can provide immediate, personalized feedback on learners' pronunciation. We investigated the effects of two ASR-based language learning systems, "I Love Indonesia" (ILI) and "NovoLearning" (NOVO), on learners' word-level and sentence-level pronunciation. ILI offers global corrective feedback, while NOVO is equipped with corrective feedback on phonetic details. 117 Indonesian high school students participated in a five-week-long experiment; 52 students used ILI and 65 NOVO. Three pronunciation measures were calculated on a pre and post reading test: phonetic edit distances plus accentedness and comprehensibility ratings. Results indicate significant improvements in learners' pronunciation, confirming that both systems are promising learning tools, with NOVO leading to more progress. Future studies should examine the long-term effects of ASR-based global and phonetic feedback on learners' pronunciation quality.

The study focuses on the process of assessing (a micro-skill) goal attainment in EFL pronunciation course via measures which can foster different students' attitudes and self-perceptions. Standard (pen-and-paper) tests offer immediate evidence of success but they put heavy demands on students' cognitive, performance and stress-controlling skills. CALL-related techniques can be used as supplementary ones, even if technically assessing different sub-skills, "Kahoot" or "Moodle" quizzes can complement and re-orientate the assessment as well as the learning processes. To investigate the impact of the diverse assessment measures a small-scale research was conducted among Year 1 students of the English Department at the Pedagogical University in Kraków. They are participants in a 90-hours-a-year pronunciation course, where one of the components involves mastering transcribing skills. The specific element of the course evaluated by standard and CALL-related measures in the study were the phonetic variants of the -es and -ed endings in English. Through analysis of test scores, coupled with the ideas obtained via semi-structured interviews, the study hoped to verify the claim that matters such as student comfort, instant individual feedback and personal safety are most efficiently handled by the "Moodle" quizzes. Apart from providing well-balanced scores, they offer the least-threatening, stress-free environments for learning and assessment, thus developing students' self-monitoring their progress.

Purpose: In the early 1980s, researchers and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) collaborated to develop the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT). Research and development over the ensuing decades has culminated into SALT Solutions, a set of tools to assist SLPs to efficiently complete language sample analysis (LSA) with their clients. In this tutorial, we describe how SALT can assist with the accurate identification of children with language disorders and provide a rich description of children's functional language use. After summarizing the multiple elicitation methods developed by the SALT team, we provide case studies, showing how to select an elicitation method that aligns with a child's characteristics. We then summarize major considerations when transcribing, analyzing, and interpreting language samples with SALT. We revisit our case studies to illustrate how SALT adds value to the comprehensive assessment of language in children. Conclusions: LSA is a powerful assessment tool for children suspected of having language disorders. The SALT suite of solutions provides a toolkit to assist SLPs with their comprehensive language assessments.

Purpose: The purposes of this tutorial are (a) to describe a method of language sample analysis (LSA) referred to as SUGAR (Sampling Utterances and Grammatical Analysis Revised) and (b) to offer step-by-step instructions detailing how to collect, transcribe, analyze, and interpret the results of a SUGAR language sample. Method: The tutorial begins with an overview of current LSA use, including barriers to clinical implementation, followed by an overview of the SUGAR method. Next, the SUGAR method is described in detail, including collecting the sample, transcribing the sample, analyzing the sample, and interpreting the results. To illustrate the method, each section includes an accompanying appendix that provides an example of a sample transcript and the various analyses. Conclusions: SUGAR offers speech-language pathologists one way to conduct LSA that is cost free, valid, and efficient. Clinicians can collect, transcribe, and analyze samples in approximately 21 min. The results of a SUGAR analysis can be used to document the presence of a language impairment, obtain a detailed description of a child's conversational language use, identify intervention targets, and develop intervention goals.

Background: Phonetic transcription of disordered speech samples is especially crucial for the assessment and treatment of functional or organic speech-sound disorders. Previous studies show that students who struggle with the identification and segmentation of speech sounds are more likely to encounter difficulties with clinical phonetic transcription. Aims: To clarify the connection between phonemic awareness and phonetic transcription in Mandarin-speaking undergraduate students, as well as the improvement of these skills after phonetic transcription training. Methods & Procedures: A pretest--post-test design was adopted for this study. The experimental group (n = 38) consisted of students majoring in audiology and speech-language pathology who were given 12 weeks of transcription training. The control group (n = 33) consisted of audiology and speech--language pathology majors who completed the same module a year earlier without undergoing the transcription training. Two instruments were used to assess their skills: (1) the Phonemic Awareness Skill Test (PA test) and (2) the Phonetic Transcription Skill Test (PT test) designed for the purposes of the present study. Outcomes & Results: Performance on most subtests of the PT and PA tests improved significantly at post-test for the experiment group, although only PT training was provided. After phonetic transcription training, the relationship between phonemic addition abilities and phonetic transcription strengthened. Phonemic identification was found to be a predictor of undergraduate students' PT skills of disordered speech samples. Conclusions & Implications: Results from this study provide insights into the role of phonetic transcription training in improving phonemic awareness and phonetic transcription skills.

The use of innovative technologies in speech-language pathology is revolutionizing diagnostic and treatment approaches for individuals with communication disorders. This evolution has required educators to integrate the use of technologies into the clinical training pedagogy. Phonetic transcription is a foundational skill presented early in the undergraduate speech-pathology curriculum and serves as the basis for advanced course work in clinical diagnostic decision-making. Mastery requires regular practice and performance feedback. One factor that impedes the provision of more practice opportunities is the widely agreed-upon problem of grading phonetic transcription assignments by hand. The development of a computational tool that automatically grades transcription assignments served as the mechanism for an integrated learning opportunity between the departments of Communication Disorders and Computer Science and Software Engineering at Auburn University.

The correct location of lexical stress is a main concern for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners whose first language has a different stress system. Therefore, in light of the fact that pronunciation errors in English are often the result of the Farsi language sound system transfer, the present study examined the impact of phonetic transcription on Iranian undergraduate EFL students' word stress learning. The quasi-experimental design was used to study two classes of EFL major students at the University of Bojnord (UB) and Kosar University of Bojnord (KUB) as the experimental group (EG) and control group (CG) respectively. A 60-item word stress test was developed by the researcher based on 20 lessons of The Flatmates from the BBC's learning English website to examine the learners' achievements. The test reliability was determined to be 0.71 through KR-21 formula. The independent samples t-test results indicated that the EG outperformed the CG. Thus, the findings suggest that EFL learners' phonetic transcription can facilitate the process of lexical stress learning.

Due to several reasons, pronunciation instruction had often been neglected in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes. Consequently, many EFL learners always find it difficult to speak confidently because of their poor pronunciation. This study is a three-cycled action research aimed at enhancing EFL students' pronunciation by using the explicit teaching approach. The participants were 21 students majoring in English Education at Universitas Kristen Indonesia who attended Integrated Skills IV class in the even semester of 2015/2016 Academic Year. The participants were provided with special practices on pronunciation, including watching video or listening to English expressions containing elements of English pronunciation difficult to them, drillings the elements, recording and transcribing their utterances, and comparing the transcriptions with those of native speakers'. Data were collected through tests and questionnaires. The results revealed that the explicit teaching approach enhanced the participants' English pronunciation skills, as shown by the increase of their average scores in the four tests administered during the actions implementation. The survey results revealed that for the participants the approach was interesting, helped pronunciation development, and increased self-confidence in English speaking.

Background: Phonetic transcription is recognized in regulatory standards as an essential skill for Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) in the assessment, diagnosis and management of clients with speech difficulties. Previous research has identified that approaches to phonetic transcription vary, and that SLTs often lack confidence in transcribing. However, SLTs' views and working practices have not been investigated in detail, particularly in terms of whole service approaches and following the recent increase in telehealth. Aims: To investigate SLTs' views about phonetic transcription, their working practices at both individual and service levels, and the factors that influence these. Methods & Procedures: A total of 19 SLTs from the UK were recruited to online focus groups via social media and local networks. Participants discussed their views of, and practices in, phonetic transcription. Themes were identified using reflexive thematic analysis. Outcomes & Results: Three broad themes were generated division and unity; one small part of a big job; and fit for purpose. SLTs were uniformly proud of their ability to phonetically transcribe and viewed this as a unique skill, but clear differences existed between different groups of SLTs in their views and practices. Investing in phonetic transcription was not always a priority for SLTs or services, and although many felt under-confident in their skills they considered these to be adequate for the populations they usually encounter. SLTs make an early judgement about possible therapy targets, which influences the level of detail used in their phonetic transcription. Practical barriers are often not addressed at service level, and assessment via telehealth poses some specific challenges. Conclusions & Implications: SLTs and services would benefit from increased investment in phonetic transcription in terms of time, opportunities for continuing professional development (CPD) and initiatives such as electronic patient records (EPRs) which support the use of phonetic symbols. Identifying target sounds at an early stage raises questions about the implications of disregarding other features of speech, and the selection of appropriate intervention approaches. Further research is needed to analyse actual rather than reported practices, and to consider the relationship between phonetic transcription and intervention approaches. Future studies could also identify precise CPD requirements and evaluate the effectiveness of CPD.

Studies have shown inadequate reading materials for the visually impaired in Nigeria. Information technology has greatly advanced the provision of information to the visually impaired in other industrialized climes. This study investigated the extent of application of information technology to the transcription of reading materials for the visually impaired in Nigeria. The study adopted survey research design of the ex-post facto to select 470 personnel as respondents. A questionnaire titled Information Technology Use Scale (a = 0.74), and Interview Schedule (a = 0.75), were used. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The findings indicate that information technology in transcription was low and a significant positive relationship between application of information technology and transcription of information materials (r = 0.62: p<0.05). The study recommended among others that Multi-National Corporations should be sensitized to extend their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities to help in procuring modern information technology devices and software to enhance transcription.

Laboratory observations are a mainstay of language development research, but transcription is costly. We test whether speech recognition technology originally designed for day-long contexts can be usefully applied to this use-case. We compared automated adult word and child vocalization counts from Language Environment Analysis (LENA[TM]) to those of transcribers in 20-minute play sessions with Spanish-speaking dyads (n = 104) at 1;7 and 2;2. For adult words, results indicated moderate associations but large absolute differences. Associations for child vocalizations were weaker with larger absolute discrepancies. LENA has moderate potential to ease the burden of transcription in some research and clinical applications.

This study deals with a special methodology to meet the special needs of Turkish gifted and talented students (GTS) in terms of improving their English oral proficiency. Most GTS are known to have been born also "gifted in languages". Their language awareness shows by their "communicative skills, creative flair and arguing and reasoning". Their skill in using their native language reflects in their talents in foreign languages by their "strong desire to put language pieces together by themselves, by their creativity and imagination, picking up new words and structures very quickly, constantly asking questions and showing an intense interest in the cultural features of the new language they are learning." So benefitting from these talents they could easily be oriented to fine-tune their pronunciation and intonation in acceptable norms of phonetics. Turkish GTS have greater ease in learning new skills than their peers and are not usually satisfied with the usual methods and curriculum which do not fit to their vision of perfection at their own pace. The official foreign language training they are offered lacks the method by which they can learn to speak clearly and effectively, which is a skill they need to acquire in order to communicate orally with the rest of the world. Therefore, they must be trained in new approaches to bring their proficiency on that line up to higher standards. In order to compensate this vital gap, such GTS need to learn first a special technique called "IPA transcription reading" and practice on relevant materials. In this innovative approach, students first acquire an awareness of the individual sounds and speech rhythm of the target language, i.e. English and practice on them by reading aloud texts written in IPA codes accompanied by their sound recordings and have their performance monitored by their speech instructions until perfection is reached. As for the drilling material to be chosen, humor has been found a great advantage, as it makes learning easier. The best known Turkish philosopher Nasreddin Hodja's satirical tales, traditionally a great source of inspiration for Turks, has been considered as a great source for such activities. By working hard on the transcriptions Hodja tales, students find not only to express themselves in English more clearly, understandably and fluently, their audience but also their conversation became wiser and more humourous. Because a sense of humor in conversation makes both speakers and listeners feel better as it smooths out their interactions as a social lubricant. Those GTS grasping the correct norms of English pronunciation after much drilling on transcription are expected to speak English more efficiently and confidently than earlier and than their peers not undergone such training. The desired outcome will of course be achieved through constant practice and monitoring their performances. [Note: The page range (15-40) displayed on the PDF is incorrect. The correct page range is 15-42.]

Most of us have read Dale Carnegie's classic "How to make friends and influence people" in which he reveals the secret of human psychology: giving people the "feeling of importance" that they seek. He claims in that work that people feel more friendly toward those who allows them this feeling by caring about them and showing this by calling them by their names. He explains the reason for this by the age-old motto "the sweetest music to anyone's ears is the sound of their own names." Likewise in Turkey, young students love best those teachers who call them by their names, and tend to remain indifferent to those who are aloof. Most foreign-born teachers who teach English in Turkish schools, although aware of the importance of communicating for better education, fail to grasp this missing link to their students' hearts by not pronouncing their students' names properly. Considering that Turkish is a difficult language to learn, they simply get by in their own particular mispronunciation or even worse by ridiculously nicknaming them. This practice naturally hurt their students' feelings, and causes negative consequences in the learning performance. To avoid this, it is suggested that such foreign-born teachers, not familiar with the Turkish language, should first consider that their students' names are part of their individual and cultural identity and they expect their teachers care for themselves as much as their names. If such teachers take some effort to learn the phonemic and stress features of the students' mother tongue, i.e. Turkish, and apply those principles on their students' names, they will make them feel happier and more comfortable with their relationship and motivate them in their performance. Names are specially selected in Turkey before given to children because of the valuable meanings they bear, and children are expected to live up to them throughout their lives. So it is natural that little ones at school also expect their teachers to respect their names. A case of mispronouncing their names or nicknaming them would only belittling their self-esteem and cause them react in their own way. So this paper presents to such teachers a special opportunity to review the basic Turkish pronunciation guide--the vowels, their soft and hard variants, combinations, the consonants, their clusters and especially primary and secondary stress patters with many examples. A listing of about 1000 most common Turkish boys and girls names with their meanings and IPA transcriptions are also given to help them be aware of such names and their significance for their students. After studying and practicing on them teachers will see for themselves the difference it makes for their relationship and the motivation this practice makes on their performance.

Perceptual assessment is the basis for diagnosis and evaluation of treatment in speech-language pathology (SLP). Students need to practise assessment skills. A web-based platform with cases and expert feedback in cleft palate disorders was developed in national collaboration. The aim of the study was to evaluate the results of individual training on assessment skills in SLP students and their perception of e-learning. Forty-five students performed tests using a pre- and post-test set-up. Perceptual assessments were demonstrated and instructions provided during teacher-led activities in ongoing fully scheduled courses; students were then individually trained in their free time. Reference samples were available. A significant improvement was found in rating and phonetic transcriptions after training. Positive comments concerned accessibility and practice time.

Technologies used for the study of speech are classified here into non-intrusive and intrusive. The paper informs on current non-intrusive technologies that are used for linguistic investigations of the speech signal, both phonological and phonetic. Providing a point of reference, the review covers existing technological advances in language research methodology for normal and disordered speech, cutting across boundaries of sub-fields: child vs. adult; first, second, or bilingual; standard or dialectal. The indispensability of such technologies for investigating linguistic aspects of speech is evident in an application that uses CLAN to manage and perform phonological and computational analysis of a bilingual child's dense speech data, longitudinally over 17 months of phonological development in Greek/English. Backed by acoustic analysis using Praat, developmental results on the child's labio-velar approximant in English are also given.

The Pinyin Tutor has been used the past few years at over thirty institutions around the world to teach students to transcribe spoken Chinese phrases into Pinyin. Large amounts of data have been collected from this program on the types of errors students make on this task. We analyze these data to discover what makes this task difficult and use our findings to iteratively improve the tutor. For instance, is a particular set of consonants, vowels, or tones causing the most difficulty? Or perhaps do certain challenges arise in the context in which these sounds are spoken? Since each Pinyin phrase can be broken down into a set of features (for example, consonants, vowel sounds, and tones), we apply machine learning techniques to uncover the most confounding aspects of this task. We then exploit what we learned to construct and maintain an accurate representation of what the student knows for best individual instruction. Our goal is to allow the learner to focus on the aspects of the task on which he or she is having most difficulty, thereby accelerating his or her understanding of spoken Chinese beyond what would be possible without such focused "intelligent" instruction.

In order to preserve distinctive cultures, people anxiously figure out writing systems of their languages as recording tools. Mandarin, Taiwanese and Hakka languages are three major and the most popular dialects of Han languages spoken in Chinese society. Their writing systems are all in Han characters. Various and independent phonetic transcriptions have been thus developed to be as the mapping mechanisms between Chinese mother tongue languages and Han characters. For teaching and learning facilitation purposes, we really require a convenient phonetic transcription system between daily Mandarin, Taiwanese and Hakka to speed Han characters data processing applications. The Roman spelling system is a universal tool that owns the one and only one spelling rule. By studying and analyzing the Roman spelling system, we have disclosed that 4135 Romanized phonetic transcriptions can be adequately applied to handle Han characters' mappings of Mandarin, Taiwanese and Hakka spoken dialects. In this paper, we propose a minimal perfect hashing function to process unified 4135 Mandarin, Taiwanese and Hakka Romanized phonetic transcriptions to their corresponding Han characters simultaneously. The unified phonetic transcription can be used to promote Chinese mother tongue languages applications and developments. Furthermore, it can be applied as a mechanism to popularize digital learning and teaching of Chinese mother tongue languages. (Contains 3 figures and 11 tables.)

This paper reports the findings of a study designed to investigate the types of supportive discourse moves employed by Persian speakers in their Requestive Speech Acts. 372 respondents took a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) with six scenarios ranging from formal to informal degrees of Perceived Situational Seriousness, and returned 2232 Requestive Speech Acts (RSAs). The acts were then analyzed according to models proposed by Faerch and Kasper's (1989), Blum-Kulka, et al. (1989), and Scollon and Scollon (2001). Results, after analysis of the data, indicated that Persian speakers use external and internal discourse moves to negotiate face in RSAs. It was concluded that Perceived Situational Seriousness was the determining factor in the choice of the type and number of discourse moves in a given RSA. Three appendixes are included: (1) DCT for Data Collection; (2) Guide to Phonetic Symbols Used for Reporting Persian Examples; and (3) Participant Profile. (Contains 3 figures and 4 tables.)

Transcribing interview data is a time-consuming task that most qualitative researchers dislike. Transcribing is even more difficult for people with physical limitations because traditional transcribing requires manual dexterity and the ability to sit at a computer for long stretches of time. Researchers have begun to explore using an automated transcription process using digital recordings and voice recognition software (VRS). While VRS has improved in recent years, it is not yet available to the general public in a format that can recognize more than one recorded voice. This article outlines a strategy used to circumvent this problem and improve the speed and ease of transcription. The equipment and the Voice Transcription Technique used are outlined, as well as suggestions for future technological advances in transcription. (Contains 2 tables.)

Writing proficiency is heavily based on acquisition and development of self-regulation and transcription skills. The present study examined the effects of combining transcription training with a self-regulation intervention (self-regulated strategy development [SRSD]) in Grade 2 (ages 7-8). Forty-three students receiving self-regulation plus transcription (SRSD+TR) intervention were compared with 37 students receiving a self-regulation only (SRSD only) intervention and 39 students receiving the standard language arts curriculum. Compared with control instruction, SRSD instruction--with or without transcription training--resulted in more complex plans; longer, better, and more complete stories; and the effects transferred to story written recall. Transcription training produced an incremental effect on students' composing skills. In particular, the SRSD+TR intervention increased handwriting fluency, spelling accuracy for inconsistent words, planning and story completeness, writing fluency, clause length, and burst length. Compared with the SRSD-only intervention, the SRSD+TR intervention was particularly effective in raising the writing quality of poorer writers. This pattern of findings suggests that students benefit from writing instruction coupling self-regulation and transcription training from very early on. This seems to be a promising instructional approach not only to ameliorate all students' writing ability and prevent future writing problems but also to minimize struggling writers' difficulties and support them in mastering writing.

Background: The critical role of phonetic transcription in the assessment, diagnosis and management of speech disorders is well established and thus pre-registration degrees dedicate numerous hours to phonetic training. However, this training is not always fully used in clinical work and clinicians may find it difficult to maintain their skills, suggesting a 'theory/practice gap'. Aims: This paper surveys speech and language therapists' (SLTs) views of their training, practice and maintenance of transcription in order to investigate the posited theory/practice gap and to explore how education in phonetics is translated into practice. Methods & Procedures: A total of 759 SLTs from the UK were surveyed via an online questionnaire. Multiple-choice questions were analysed using descriptive statistics, and free-text comments were analysed thematically. Outcomes & Results: Thirty-five per cent of SLTs found learning phonetics quite easy, and 30% quite difficult. Respondents suggested that more time was needed to practise transcription in and out of the classroom; nevertheless, the majority felt at least equipped to undertake transcription after their training. A total of 75% of SLTs require transcription for their role, with 61% using it often or all the time. Some 45% use a mix of broad and narrow transcription, with 41% using only broad transcription. Those not using narrow transcription attributed this to lack of confidence. A total of 57% of SLTs did not feel supported to maintain transcription skills in the workplace, and 80% had never attended a refresher course in transcription, with 75% wishing to do so. Conclusions & Implications: As many clinicians found it difficult to learn transcription, there is an opportunity to provide more transcription practice both in and beyond the classroom. Despite most clinicians feeling equipped to undertake transcription upon completion of their training, and a large majority requiring transcription for their role, a theory/practice gap is apparent in the relatively small number of clinicians using narrow transcription exclusively, and those not using it expressing lack of confidence in their skills. Additionally, as many clinicians have never attended refresher training in transcription, and rely on their course notes to maintain their skills, more provision of opportunities for revision should be made available. With clinicians remembering a need for more practice during their training, and expressing a desire for more training opportunities in practice, there is an opportunity for clinicians, educators and regulatory bodies to work together to provide packages of transcription training material that can be used by students and practitioners to maintain and extend their skills.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of phonetic transcription training on the explicit phonemic awareness of adults. Fifty undergraduate students enrolled in a phonetic transcription course and 107 control undergraduate students completed a paper-and-pencil measure of explicit phonemic awareness on the first and last days of class. Performance was analyzed for overall accuracy, as well as accuracy on easy-to-segment and hard-to-segment words. A MANCOVA revealed a main effect of group on each dependent variable. In addition, intervention-group pretest and posttest scores were not related. Thus, phonetic transcription training appears to be an effective method of increasing explicit phonemic awareness in adults, and initial skill level is not related to gains as a result of phonetic transcription training.

The main objective of this research was to analyze the impact of transcription skills of Spanish writers when writing an independently composed sentence within a writing-level design. The free-writing sentence task from the "Early Grade Writing Assessment" (Jiménez, in press) was used to examine the production, accuracy, speed, syntactic complexity, quality, and fluency of children with poor transcription skills (PTS). The results showed that there were significant differences between children with PTS and peers who had good transcription skills. The PTS group members were less accurate, slower, and less fluent or even dysfluent. Furthermore, their sentences were less complex and contained lower quality content. These results suggest that transcription skills play a crucial role in early written expression in Spanish, and poor transcription abilities hamper the acquisition and normal development of sentence composition.

Background: In recent years, analyses of cleft palate speech based on phonetic transcriptions have become common. However, the results vary considerably among different studies. It cannot be excluded that differences in assessment methodology, including the recording medium, influence the results. Aims: To compare phonetic transcriptions from audio and audio/video recordings of cleft palate speech by means of outcomes of per cent correct consonants (PCC) and differences in consonant transcriptions. Methods & Procedures: Thirty-two 3-year-olds born with cleft palate were audio and audio/video recorded while performing a single-word test by picture naming. The recordings were transcribed according to the International Phonetic Alphabet. The transcriptions from the audio and the audio/video recordings were analysed with regard to PCC, differences in the use of phonetic consonant symbols and the use of diacritics. Outcomes & Results: PCC was higher when the calculation was based on transcriptions from audio recordings than when based on audio/video recordings. No such differences were seen when age-appropriate consonant processes were scored as correct. Consonants were not excluded as often in the transcriptions from audio/video recordings as they were in the transcriptions from audio recordings, and more target consonants were transcribed as dental/alveolar in the transcriptions from audio/video recordings and palatal/velar/uvular in the transcriptions from audio recordings than vice versa. Further, interdental articulation, linguolabial articulation and audible nasal air leakage were more common in the transcriptions from audio/video recordings than in those from audio recordings. All these differences were statistically significant. Conclusions & Implications: Phonetic transcription is influenced to some extent by visual cues. However, as long as age-appropriate articulatory and phonological simplification processes are scored as correct when evaluating consonant production in the speech of young children born with cleft palate using phonetic transcription, the recording medium does not seem to affect the results.

Children with deafblindness need support to be able to understand the world and to have access to information. The authors analyzed a dyad consisting of a child with congenital deafblindness and a specialized teacher. The study included participant observations and audiovisual recordings. It was found that the child showed attention to the teacher in activities involving music and rhythm. As potential forms of nonverbal communication, the child presented vocalization, touch, body contact, body movements, facial expressions, and tears. The teacher's forms of communication were verbal, touch, visual, rhythm, and sign language. It was concluded that a significant communication partner is essential to identify, interpret, and respond to attention and communicative behaviors. Use of other forms of communication must comply with individual characteristics so that the child with deafblindness can receive information from the environment through these senses and thus be guaranteed access to the world.

Cognitive and linguistic components related to spelling and writing in English as a second language (ESL) and native-English speaking (EL1) third graders were examined. ESL and EL1 children performed similarly on rapid naming, phonological awareness (PA), verbal short-term and working memory, reading fluency, single-word spelling, text spelling, handwriting fluency, and paragraph writing fluency tasks, and on writing quality indices. ESL children scored lower on vocabulary, syntactic awareness and decoding fluency measures. PA predicted single-word spelling for EL1 and PA and rapid naming predicted single-word spelling for ESL. PA and rapid naming contributed to text level spelling across groups. Rapid naming and syntactic awareness predicted writing quality (content and structure) for ESL children, but syntactic awareness and oral vocabulary predicted writing quality for EL1. Transcription predicted overall writing achievement for ESL, but transcription, vocabulary, and syntactic awareness were all important to overall writing ability for EL1. Results are discussed in relation to the componential model of writing in a first or a second language.

Background: The assessment of intelligibility is an essential part of establishing the severity of a speech disorder. The intelligibility of a speaker is affected by a number of different variables relating, "inter alia," to the speech material, the listener and the listener task. Aims: To explore the impact of the number of presentations of the utterances on assessments of intelligibility based on orthographic transcription of spontaneous speech, specifically the impact on intelligibility scores, reliability and intra-listener variability. Methods & Procedures: Speech from 12 children (aged 4:6-8:3 years; mean = 5:10 years) with percentage consonants correct (PCC) scores ranging from 49 to 81 was listened to by 18 students on the speech-language pathology (SLP) programme and by two recent graduates from that programme. Three conditions were examined during the transcription phase: (1) listening to each utterance once; (2) listening to each utterance a second time; and (3) listening to all utterances from a given child a third time after having heard all of its utterances twice. Outcomes & Results: Statistically significant differences between intelligibility scores were found across the three conditions, i.e. the intelligibility score increased with the number of presentations while inter-judge reliability was unchanged. The results differed markedly across listeners, but each individual listener's results were very consistent across conditions. Conclusions & Implications: Information about the number of times an utterance is presented to the listener is important and should therefore always be included in reports of research involving intelligibility assessment. There is a need for further research and discussion on listener abilities and strategies.

In literature, "Baskeet," also known by the Amharic term, "Basketo," is an Omotic language spoken by about 80,000 speakers in the Basketo Special Woreda and in the Melokoza Woreda of the Gamo-Gofa Zone in the Southern Region of Ethiopia. Baskeet (ISO 639-3 code: bst) belongs to the Ometo branch of North Omotic and is hitherto little studied. After an introduction to the sound system of the language in section 2, this work presents a list of about 200 Baskeet words in a phonemic and a broad phonetic transcription with tone marking. The lexical items of the list in section 3 were drawn from the first author's lexical and textual database, which had been established during fieldwork in different villages of the Basketo Special Woreda. The aim of this publication is to make verifiable lexical data available to a wider public for the comparison of Ometo languages (and dialects). To date, phonological descriptions of Baskeet and historical/comparative works on Ometo languages are based on sets of largely unreliable and inconsistent data, which were collected many decades ago and from speakers living outside the speaker area.

Drawing on nearly 20 years of study of a variety of languages in North East India, from the Tai and Tibeto-Burman families, this paper examines the issues involved in studying those languages, building on three well established principles: (a) tones are categories within a language, and the recognition of those categories is the key step in describing the tonal system; (b) in at least some languages, tones are a bundle of features, of which (relative) pitch is only one; and (c) tones may carry different levels of functional load in different languages. I will discuss the use of historical and comparative data to assist with tonal analysis, while raising the possibility that the tonal categories of individual words may vary from one language variety to the next. Different approaches to marking tones, for linguistic transcriptions, presentation of acoustic data (F[subscript 0]) and in practical orthographies are discussed, along with the effect of intonation and grammatical factors such as nominalisation on the realisation of tones.

Linguists have long recognized the descriptive limitations of Stokoe notation, currently the most commonly used system for phonetic or phonological transcription, but continue using it because of its widespread influence (e.g., Siedlecki and Bonvillian, 2000). With the emergence of newer notation systems, the field will benefit from a discussion and evaluation of the notation systems. It is necessary to understand the outcomes of choosing one notational system or another for representation of signed language since such a choice has lasting effect on the understanding of patterns in signed languages. In this article, I outline and examine four notation systems (Stokoe notation, Hamburg Notation System, Prosodic Model Handshape Coding and Sign Language Phonetic Annotation) used to represent hand configurations in studies of child acquisition of signed languages from the perspective of design principles of transcription, generally focusing on human and machine readability, but more specifically specificity, category design, transparency, economy, conventionality, and familiarity.

Purpose: In this study, the authors aimed to investigate how listener training and the presence of intermediate acoustic cues influence transcription variability for conflicting cue speech stimuli. Method: Twenty listeners with training in transcribing disordered speech, and 26 untrained listeners, were asked to make forced-choice labeling decisions for synthetic vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV) sequences ''a doe'' (/schwa do/) and ''a go'' (/schwa go/). Both the VC and CV transitions in these stimuli ranged through intermediate positions, from appropriate for /d/ to appropriate for /g/. Results: Both trained and untrained listeners gave more weight to the CV transitions than to the VC transitions. However, listener behavior was not uniform: The results showed a high level of inter- and intratranscriber inconsistency, with untrained listeners showing a nonsignificant tendency to be more influenced than trained listeners by CV transitions. Conclusions: Listeners do not assign consistent categorical labels to the type of intermediate, conflicting transitional cues that were present in the stimuli used in the current study and that are also present in disordered articulations. Although listener inconsistency in assigning labels to intermediate productions is not increased as a result of phonetic training, neither is it reduced by such training. (Contains 3 tables and 4 figures.)

Purpose: The prelinguistic infant's babbling repertoire of "syllables"--the phonological categories that form the basis for early word learning--is noticed by caregivers who interact with infants around them. Prior research on babbling has not explored the caregiver's role in recognition of early vocal categories as foundations for word learning. In the present work, the authors begin to address this gap. Method: The authors explored vocalizations produced by 8 infants at 3 ages (8, 10, and 12 months) in studies illustrating identification of phonological categories through caregiver report, laboratory procedures simulating the caregiver's natural mode of listening, and the more traditional laboratory approach (phonetic transcription). Results: Caregivers reported small repertoires of syllables for their infants. Repertoires of similar size and phonetic content were discerned in the laboratory by judges who simulated the caregiver's natural mode of listening. However, phonetic transcription with repeated listening to infant recordings yielded repertoire sizes that vastly exceeded those reported by caregivers and naturalistic listeners. Conclusions: The results suggest that caregiver report and naturalistic listening by laboratory staff can provide a new way to explore key characteristics of early infant vocal categories, a way that may provide insight into later speech and language development.

Purpose: Error variability has traditionally been considered a hallmark of apraxia of speech (AOS). However, in some of the current AOS literature, relatively invariable error patterns are claimed as a mandatory criterion for a diagnosis of AOS. This paradigm shift has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the disorder and for its (differential) diagnosis. Against the background of this controversy, the present article aims to further examine error variability in AOS. Method: Four patients with relatively pure, mild-to-moderate AOS participated in the study. They repeated 8 target words in 2 different phrase contexts, 10 times each. Error analyses were based on phonetic transcription. Error variability was determined using several measures of (a) consistency of error occurrence and (b) consistency of error type. Results: All patients produced highly inconsistent reactions across multiple trials in some of the target words. However, other words were more consistently accurate or inaccurate. Several factors influencing error variability were identified. Conclusions: Because this study has disclosed clear indications of variable behavior in AOS, diagnostic guidelines claiming error consistency as a mandatory criterion cannot be maintained. Because error variability is difficult to operationalize, we recommend to no longer use (in)consistency as a strict diagnostic marker of AOS.

Purpose: Early apraxia of speech (AOS) research has characterized errors as being variable, resulting in a number of different error types being produced on repeated productions of the same stimuli. Conversely, recent research has uncovered greater consistency in errors, but there are limited data examining sound errors over time (more than one occasion). Furthermore, the influence of conditions of stimulus presentation (blocked vs. random) on sound errors remains uncertain. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of repeated sampling and conditions of stimulus presentation on speech sound errors for 11 speakers with AOS/aphasia. Method: Trisyllabic words consisting of 7 target phonemes in the initial position served as stimuli. On 3 occasions, stimuli were elicited under 2 conditions: blocked (by phoneme) and randomized presentation. Speech productions were analyzed via narrow phonetic transcription. Results: Findings revealed a similar overall mean percentage of errors in both conditions and across sampling occasions. Distortions were the dominant error type. Conclusion: There was no obvious pattern of responding across sampling occasions or conditions of stimulus presentation. The dominant error type differed among target phonemes, but there appeared to be some degree of consistency in the error types produced for the majority of target phonemes. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

The phonetic symbols used by speech-language pathologists to transcribe speech contain underlying hexadecimal values used by computers to correctly display and process transcription data. This study aimed to develop a procedure to utilise these values as the basis for subsequent computerized analysis of cleft palate speech. A computer keyboard file and a modified font file were developed using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet and extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet to improve the computerized storage of phonetic symbols used in cleft palate speech transcription. Computerized coding procedures were written to retrieve hexadecimal values of transcribed symbols and match these to their phonetic attributes as defined in the International Phonetic Alphabet and extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet. Computerized procedures were subsequently developed to analyse transcription data based on these matched hexadecimal values and their associated phonetic attributes, with respect to cleft palate speech. This method will be a useful addition to existing computerized speech analysis tools. (Contains 11 figures and 1 table.)