Dynamic association between phonemic awareness and disordered speech recognition moderated by transcription training

Area of Science:

• Speech-language pathology
• Linguistics
• Auditory sciences

Background:

• Phonetic transcription is vital for assessing and treating speech sound disorders.
• Difficulties in speech sound identification and segmentation correlate with challenges in phonetic transcription.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between phonemic awareness and phonetic transcription skills in Mandarin-speaking undergraduates.
• To assess the impact of phonetic transcription training on these skills.

Main Methods:

• A pretest-post-test design was used with an experimental group (n=38) receiving 12 weeks of phonetic transcription training.
• A control group (n=33) did not receive the training.
• The Phonemic Awareness Skill Test (PA test) and Phonetic Transcription Skill Test (PT test) were administered.

Main Results:

• The experimental group showed significant improvements in both PA and PT tests post-training.
• Phonetic transcription training enhanced the association between phonemic addition abilities and phonetic transcription.
• Phonemic identification emerged as a predictor of phonetic transcription skills for disordered speech.

Conclusions:

• Phonetic transcription training is effective in enhancing both phonemic awareness and phonetic transcription abilities.
• The findings highlight the importance of this training for speech-language pathology professionals.
• Implications extend to literacy skills for alphabetic language speakers.