Prenatal listening experience reportedly modulates how humans process speech at birth, but little is known about how speech perception develops throughout the perinatal period. The present experiment assessed the neural event-related potentials (ERP) and mismatch responses (MMR) to native vowels in 99 neonates born between 32 and 42 weeks of gestation. The vowels elicited reliable ERPs in newborns whose gestational age at time of experiment was at least 36 weeks and 1 day (36 + 1). The ERPs reflected spectral distinctions between vowel onsets from age 36 weeks + 6 days and durational distinctions at vowel offsets from age 37 weeks + 6 days. Starting at age 40 + 4, there was evidence of neural discrimination of vowel length, indexed by a negative MMR response. The present findings extend our understanding of the earliest stages of speech perception development in that they pinpoint the ages at which the cortex reliably responds to the phonetic characteristics of individual speech sounds and discriminates a native phoneme contrast. The age at which the brain reliably differentiates vowel onsets coincides with what is considered term age in many countries (37 weeks + 0 days of gestational age). Future studies should investigate to what extent the perinatal maturation of the cortical responses to speech sounds is modulated by the ambient language.

• MeSH
• akustická stimulace * metody   MeSH
• elektroencefalografie * MeSH
• evokované potenciály fyziologie   MeSH
• fonetika * MeSH
• gestační stáří * MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• novorozenec nedonošený fyziologie   MeSH
• novorozenec MeSH
• percepce řeči * fyziologie   MeSH
• sluchové evokované potenciály fyziologie   MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• novorozenec MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH

Prenatal learning of speech rhythm and melody is well documented. Much less is known about the earliest acquisition of segmental speech categories. We tested whether newborn infants perceive native vowels, but not nonspeech sounds, through some existing (proto-)categories, and whether they do so more robustly for some vowels than for others. Sensory event-related potentials (ERP), and mismatch responses (MMR), were obtained from 104 neonates acquiring Czech. The ERPs elicited by vowels were larger than the ERPs to nonspeech sounds, and reflected the differences between the individual vowel categories. The MMRs to changes in vowels but not in nonspeech sounds revealed left-lateralized asymmetrical processing patterns: a change from a focal [a] to a nonfocal [ɛ], and the change from short [ɛ] to long [ɛ:] elicited more negative MMR responses than reverse changes. Contrary to predictions, we did not find evidence of a developmental advantage for vowel length contrasts (supposedly most readily available in utero) over vowel quality contrasts (supposedly less salient in utero). An explanation for these asymmetries in terms of differential degree of prior phonetic warping of speech sounds is proposed. Future studies with newborns with different language backgrounds should test whether the prenatal learning scenario proposed here is plausible.

• MeSH
• elektroencefalografie MeSH
• evokované potenciály MeSH
• fonetika MeSH
• kojenec MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• novorozenec MeSH
• percepce řeči * fyziologie   MeSH
• řeč MeSH
• těhotenství MeSH
• Check Tag
• kojenec MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• novorozenec MeSH
• těhotenství MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

BACKGROUND: The relevance of formant-based measures has been noted across a spectrum of medical, technical, and linguistic applications. Therefore, the primary aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of ageing on vowel articulation, as the previous research revealed contradictory findings. The secondary aim was to provide normative acoustic data for all Czech monophthongs. METHODS: The database consisted of 100 healthy speakers (50 men and 50 women) aged between 20 and 90. Acoustic characteristics, including vowel duration, vowel space area (VSA), fundamental frequency (fo), and the first to fourth formant frequencies (F1-F4) of 10 Czech vowels were extracted from a reading passage. In addition, the articulation rate was calculated from the entire duration of the reading passage. RESULTS: Age-related changes in pitch were sex-dependent, while age-related alterations in F2/a/, F2/u/, VSA, and vowel duration seemed to be sex-independent. In particular, we observed a clear lowering of fo with age for women, but no change for men. With regard to formants, we found lowering of F2/a/ and F2/u/ with increased age, but no statistically significant changes in F1, F3, or F4 frequencies with advanced age. Although the alterations in F1 and F2 frequencies were rather small, they appeared to be in a direction against vowel centralization, resulting in a significantly greater VSA in the older population. The greater VSA was found to be related partly to longer vowel duration. CONCLUSIONS: Alterations in vowel formant frequencies across several decades of adult life appear to be small or in a direction against vowel centralization, thus indicating the good preservation of articulatory precision in older speakers.

• MeSH
• akustika řeči * MeSH
• akustika * MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• fonetika MeSH
• jazyk (prostředek komunikace) MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• senioři nad 80 let MeSH
• senioři MeSH
• stárnutí MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• senioři nad 80 let MeSH
• senioři MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Česká republika MeSH

Cílem této studie bylo představit české veřejnosti návrh clusteringu a switchingu v testu verbální fluence (VF), adaptovat vybrané klasifikace do českého prostředí a posoudit jejich relevanci. Článek se zabývá hodnocením uspořádání slov do celků (tzv. clusterů) a plynulosti přepínání mezi nimi (switching). Tento v zahraničí rozšířený přístup k analýze protokolů VF nebyl doposud v češtině systematizován. Čtenář je seznámen s teoretickým pozadím hodnocení clusterů a switchů ve fonologické verzi (PVF) i kategoriální verzi (SVF) a některými vybranými klasifikacemi – např. Troyer et al. (1997), Abwender et al. (2001), Libon et al. (2009) či Tallberg et al. (2011). Klasifikace Troyerové et al. (1997), která je celosvětově nejcitovanější, byla převzata a autoři článku se vyjádřili k jednotlivým pravidlům z pohledu českého jazyka i kulturního prostředí (Studie 1). Ve Studii 2 byly u deseti vybraných protokolů dvěma posuzovateli oskórovány fonematické clustery v PVF a sémantické clustery v SVF. Vypočtená shoda posuzovatelů ukázala v obou případech na dobrou až výbornou shodu. Jedná se o velmi slibný, nicméně stále teoretický koncept, jehož aplikace do praxe si žádá další zkoumání.

The main goal of this study was to introduce the evaluation procedure in Verbal fluency task – clustering and switching – to the Czech public, to adapt this procedure to the Czech language and to judge its relevance. The review focuses on the way of arranging the words into the clusters (so called clustering) and switching between them. This procedure is extended in foreign research but it has not yet been systematically adapted in the Czech context. In the article the theoretical background of clustering and switching in phonological verbal fluency (PVF) and also in semantic verbal fluency (SVF) is introduced and few classifications of clustering are described – e.g. Troyer et al. (1997), Abwender et al. (2001), Libon et al. (2009) and Tallberg et al. (2011). In Study 1, the most cited classification by Troyer et al. (1997) is adapted to the Czech language and the differences between the original version and Czech adaptation are discussed. In Study 2, ten protocols were rated by two raters and the inter-rater reliability was calculated. The value of Cohen,s kappa showed moderate to excellent agreement. This approach is very promising but it requires further research.

• MeSH
• fonetika MeSH
• lingvistika metody   MeSH
• neuropsychologické testy MeSH
• sémantika MeSH
• verbální chování klasifikace   MeSH
• Publikační typ
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

Nasal cavities are known to introduce antiresonances (dips) in the sound spectrum reducing the acoustic power of the voice. In this study, a three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model of the vocal tract (VT) of one female subject was created for vowels [a:] and [i:] without and with a detailed model of nasal cavities based on CT (Computer Tomography) images. The 3D FE models were then used for analyzing the resonances, antiresonances and the acoustic pressure response spectra of the VT. The computed results were compared with the measurements of a VT model for the vowel [a:], obtained from the FE model by 3D printing. The nasality affects mainly the lowest formant frequency and decreases its peak level. The results confirm the main effect of nasalization, i.e., that sound pressure level decreases in the frequency region of the formants F1-F2 and emphasizes the frequency region of the formants F3-F5 around the singer's formant cluster. Additionally, many internal local resonances in the nasal and paranasal cavities were found in the 3D FE model. Their effect on the acoustic output was found to be minimal, but accelerometer measurements on the walls of the 3D-printed model suggested they could contribute to structure vibrations.

• MeSH
• akustika řeči MeSH
• fonetika MeSH
• hlas * MeSH
• kvalita hlasu * MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• nosní dutina diagnostické zobrazování   MeSH
• počítačová simulace MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

At the babbling stage, the syllable does not have the temporal characteristics of adult syllables because of the infant's limited oro-motor skills. This research aims to further our knowledge of syllable duration and temporal variability and their evolution with age as an indicator of the development of articulatory skills. The possible impact of syllable position, as well as that of type of intrasyllabic associations and intersyllabic articulatory changes on these parameters has also been tested. Oral productions of 22 French infants were recorded monthly from 8 to 14 months. 11 261 Consonant-Vowel (CV) syllables were annotated and temporally analyzed. The mean duration varied according to syllable position, but not to the intrasyllabic or intersyllabic articulatory changes. Moreover, the syllable duration decreased significantly from the age of 10 months onwards, whereas the temporal variability remained the same.

• MeSH
• fonetika * MeSH
• kojenec MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• longitudinální studie MeSH
• motorické dovednosti MeSH
• vývoj řeči MeSH
• Check Tag
• kojenec MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

Vowel length contrasts in quantity languages are typically realized primarily through duration. This study tested whether spectral cues contribute to the perceptual identification of the short-long monophthongal contrasts in two varieties of Czech. Results showed that listeners attend to spectrum as well as to duration, both for the high vowel-length pairs, which display consistent spectral differentiation in production, and for the remaining contrasts, whose spectral differences are subtle. Reliance on spectrum was generally higher for Bohemian than Moravian listeners. The findings reveal the utilization of spectrum for vowel length perception in Czech, which is described as a "true" quantity language.

• MeSH
• akustická stimulace MeSH
• akustika řeči * MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• fonetika * MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• percepce řeči * MeSH
• počítačové zpracování signálu MeSH
• podněty MeSH
• zvuková spektrografie MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

Purpose The study examined the effects of imageability and phonological neighborhood density on the acquisition of word production in Czech, controlling for part-of-speech class, word length, and word frequency. Phonological neighborhood density is of interest because previous research has not examined highly inflected languages such as Czech. The effects of imageability on word acquisition are widely assumed, but only a few empirical studies examined such effects using child data directly. Method Data from the Czech norming study of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories ( Smolík, Turková, Marušincová, & Malechová, 2017 ) adaptation were used, and all nouns and action words in the data set were examined (total 359). Based on the norming sample of 493 children, the expected age of acquisition was calculated. Results A small but significant effect of neighborhood density (explaining 1.5% of unique variance) was found, as well as a robust effect of imageability (9% of unique variance). Imageability also accounted for the difference between nouns and verbs in the age of acquisition. Conclusion Imageability is a robust predictor of word age of acquisition that should be taken into account in future studies. The identifiability of the referent and the memory mechanisms are likely responsible for the strong imageability effect. Words with large phonological neighborhoods are acquired earlier, even in a language with complex inflectional morphology.

• MeSH
• fonetika * MeSH
• imaginace * MeSH
• jazyk (prostředek komunikace) * MeSH
• kojenec MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• předškolní dítě MeSH
• slovní zásoba * MeSH
• věkové faktory MeSH
• vývoj řeči * MeSH
• Check Tag
• kojenec MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• předškolní dítě MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Česká republika MeSH

Vývojová dysfázie je jednou z nejčastějších diagnóz, se kterými se klinický logoped ve své každodenní praxi setkává. Jedná se o diagnózu, která s sebou nese celou řadu potenciálních problémů, jež musí logoped řešit. Dysfázie se zdaleka netýká jen špatné srozumitelnosti řeči, ale dotýká se zpravidla i mnoha jiných oblastí, ať už jde o slovní zásobu, morfologicko-syntaktickou rovinu jazyka či porozumění řeči. Jednou z oblastí, o níž se v souvislosti s vývojovou dysfázií hovoří méně, je přenos potíží do psané řeči - tedy o vysokém riziku výskytu potíží ve čtení a psaní, které je pro děti s vývojovou dysfázií mnohem vyšší než u intaktních dětí. Cílem tohoto článku je poukázat na souvislosti vývojové dysfázie a počáteční gramotnosti v kontextu tuzemské a zahraniční literatury, shrnout aktuálně dostupné poznatky o efektivitě intervence v oblastech, které za počáteční gramotnost zodpovídají, a podnítit tak odborníky z různých oblastí k zamyšlení nad dalšími možnostmi pomoci dětem s vývojovou dysfázií tak, aby se předešlo jejich selhávání ve školních dovednostech. V závěru článku bude přiblíženo nové vydání stimulačního programu Trénink jazykových schopností podle D. B. Elkonina a jeho praktická aplikace v České republice v současné době.

Developmental dysphasia is one of the most common diagnoses encountered by clinical speech therapists. It is a diagnosis that brings with it a number of potential problems that the speech therapist has to solve. Dysphasia is not only about poor speech intelligibility, but also affects many other areas - vocabulary, morphology and syntax or language comprehension. One area that is less pronounced in relation to developmental dysphasia is the transmission of problems to written language - the high risk of reading and writing difficulties, which is much higher for children with developmental dysphasia than for intact children.The aim of this article is to highlight the relationship between developmental dysphasia and initial literacy in the context of domestic and foreign literature. We will try to summarize currently available knowledge on the effectiveness of intervention in skills that are responsible for initial literacy, and also encourage professionals from different areas to think about other possibilities of helping children with developmental dysphasia to prevent their failure in school skills. At the end of the article, a new edition of the stimulation program "Training of Language Skills by D. B. Elkonin" and its practical application in the Czech Republic at the present time will be presented.

• MeSH
• čtení MeSH
• fonetika MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• percepce řeči MeSH
• psaní MeSH
• řečová terapie * metody   MeSH
• sluchová percepce MeSH
• uvědomování si MeSH
• vývoj řeči MeSH
• vývojové poruchy řeči * komplikace   terapie   MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH

A number of studies in different languages have shown that speakers may be sensitive to the presence of inflectional morphology in the absence of verb meaning (Caramazza et al. in Cognition 28(3):297-332, 1988; Clahsen in Behav Brain Sci 22(06):991-1013, 1999; Post et al. in Cognition 109(1):1-17, 2008). In this study, sensitivity to inflectional morphemes was tested in a purposely developed task with English-like nonwords. Native speakers of English were presented with pairs of nonwords and were asked to judge whether the two nonwords in each pair were the same or different. Each pair was composed either of the same nonword repeated twice, or of two slightly different nonwords. The nonwords were created taking advantage of a specific morphophonological property of English, which is that regular inflectional morphemes agree in voicing with the ending of the stem. Using stems ending in /l/, thus, we created: (1) nonwords ending in potential inflectional morphemes, vɔld, (2) nonwords without inflectional morphemes, vɔlt, and (3) a phonological control condition, vɔlb. Our new task endorses some strengths presented in previous work. As in Post et al. (2008) the task accounts for the importance of phonological cues to morphological processing. In addition, as in Caramazza et al. (1988) and contrary to Post et al. (2008), the task never presents bare-stems, making it unlikely that the participants would be aware of the manipulation performed. Our results are in line with Caramazza et al. (1988), Clahsen (1999) and Post et al. (2008), and offer further evidence that morphologically inflected nonwords take longer to be discriminated compared to uninflected nonwords.

• MeSH
• diskriminace (psychologie) MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• fonetika MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• percepce řeči fyziologie   MeSH
• psycholingvistika * MeSH
• reakční čas fyziologie   MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH