CSDI Exam 2

Respiratory System

The anatomical system acting as the power supply and energy source for speech production.

Larynx

The cartilaginous and muscular structure in the neck serving as the primary sound source for phonation.

Pharynx

The muscular airway tube located in the throat that connects the larynx and oral cavity to modify sound.

Oral Cavity

The airway passage in the mouth that joins the pharynx at the back of the mouth to sculpt distinct speech sounds.

Vegetative (Rest) Breathing

Automatic biological breathing characterized by symmetric airflow patterns, equal inhalation and exhalation volumes, and equal durations.

Speech Breathing

Non-symmetric breathing characterized by a rapid, deep inhalation followed by a prolonged, controlled exhalation during phrase production.

Vital Capacity (VC)

The maximum volume of air that can be exhaled following a maximum, full inhalation.

Lung Pressure Regulation

The active maintenance of a steady, positive lung pressure (approx. 6-7 cm H₂O) required for speech, with brief dynamic pressure boosts used to increase vocal loudness.

Balloon Model of Speech Breathing

A mechanical analogy where thoracic muscles squeeze to generate positive lung pressure, while abdominal muscles contract to prevent outward abdominal bulging, optimizing breath control.

Cricoid Cartilage

The ring-shaped cartilage that forms the inferior (bottom) border of the larynx.

Hyoid Bone

The U-shaped bone that forms the superior (top) boundary of the larynx, though technically not part of the larynx itself.

Vocal Folds

Paired bands of muscular and non-muscular tissue extending from the anterior to the posterior of the thyroid cartilage that vibrate to generate voiced sound.

Glottis

The open, variable space between the true vocal folds.

Superficial Mucosal Layer

The outermost tissue layer of the vocal folds that vibrates independently of deeper layers—a specialized structure unique to humans.

Phonation

The rapid, repeated vibration of the vocal folds that produces the acoustic sound source of voice.

Fundamental Frequency (F₀)

The physical rate of vocal fold vibration measured in complete opening-and-closing cycles per second (Hertz/Hz).

Pitch

The subjective, auditory perceptual correlate of physical fundamental frequency (F₀).

Loudness

The subjective, auditory perceptual correlate of physical acoustic intensity.

Voice Quality

The subjective, auditory perceptual correlate of a complex acoustic blend of harmonic frequencies and aperiodic (noise) energy.

Vocal Tract

The airway resonator extending from the vocal folds to the lips whose continuous shape changes act as the primary filter/shaper of speech sounds.

Nasal Tract

The airway running from the upper pharynx to the nostrils, whose physical shape remains generally constant during speech.

Velopharyngeal (VP) Port

The muscular valve between the velum (soft palate) and pharyngeal walls that couples or decouples the oral and nasal cavities.

Open VP Port

The lowered state of the velum with relaxed pharyngeal walls, allowing air and acoustic energy to enter the nasal cavity for nasal consonants (/m/, /n/, /ŋ/).

Closed VP Port

The elevated state of the velum contracted against the pharyngeal walls, creating an airtight seal required for vowels and pressure consonants.

Pressure Consonants

Consonants requiring high intraoral air pressure above atmospheric levels, demanding an airtight VP port and an oral constriction.

Coarticulation

The overlapping of articulatory movements wherein one speech sound is continuously influenced by adjacent and non-adjacent sounds.

Source-Filter Theory

The acoustic model stating that speech output results from an acoustic sound source filtered by a resonant vocal tract.

Sound Source

The raw acoustic signal produced by the vibrating vocal folds, containing the fundamental frequency (F₀) and numerous higher harmonics.

Sound Filter

The vocal tract resonator that selectively amplifies certain frequencies and dampens others based on its dynamic anatomical shape.

Spectrogram

A visual representation of sound displaying time on the x-axis, frequency on the y-axis, and acoustic energy via darkness.

Formant

A natural resonant frequency of the vocal tract, visualized on a spectrogram as a prominent dark horizontal band.

Acoustic Tube Length Principle

The acoustic rule that shorter resonating tubes produce higher resonant frequencies.

Motor Theory of Speech Perception

The proposal that speech perception relies on a dedicated brain module decoding acoustic signals directly into articulatory gestures.

Auditory Theories of Speech Perception

The proposal that speech perception relies on general auditory processing by matching incoming signals against stored mental templates.

Bottom-Up Processing

Signal-driven acoustic analysis of incoming speech sounds beginning at the ear.

Top-Down Processing

Concept-driven cognitive and linguistic processing using higher-level context and vocabulary knowledge to rapidly recognize words.

Speech Intelligibility

The degree to which an acoustic speech signal is understandable to a listener.

Scaling Technique

A clinical method for measuring speech intelligibility using subjective numerical rating scales (e.g., a 1-7 scale).

Transcription/Identification Task

An objective clinical method for measuring speech intelligibility by calculating the percentage of words or sentences correctly transcribed.

Phonetics

The scientific study of the physical and perceptual sound components of human speech.

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

A universal transcription alphabet providing a standardized symbol for every distinct sound across all human languages.

Articulatory Phonetics

The branch of phonetics focused on how speech sounds are produced by physical anatomical movements of the articulators.

Acoustic Phonetics

The branch of phonetics focused on the physical waveform, frequency, and transmission properties of speech sounds.

Perceptual Phonetics

The branch of phonetics focused on how listeners perceive, discriminate, and categorize speech sounds using the IPA.

Vowel Quadrilateral

A geometric two-dimensional schematic representing tongue position inside the oral cavity across height and advancement.

Tongue Height

The vertical location of the tongue relative to the palate (High, Mid-High, Mid, Low-Mid, Low).

Tongue Advancement

The horizontal position of the tongue within the oral cavity (Front, Central, Back).

Lip Rounding

The circular pursing of the lips during vowel production (rounded vs. unrounded).

Corner Vowels

The four vowels (/i/, /u/, /æ/, /ɑ/) that define the extreme physical boundaries of the vowel quadrilateral.

Monophthong

A pure vowel produced with an unchanging, single articulatory posture throughout its production.

Diphthong

A single, independent phoneme produced by gliding dynamically from an initial vowel posture to a second vowel posture within one syllable.

Place of Articulation

The specific anatomical location in the vocal tract where the airstream is constricted or obstructed to produce a consonant.

Manner of Articulation

The way or degree to which the escaping airstream is modified or restricted during consonant production.

Voicing

The presence (voiced) or absence (voiceless) of vocal fold vibration during speech sound production.

Broad Transcription

Phonemic transcription enclosed in slashes / / that records abstract phoneme categories without fine phonetic detail.

Narrow Transcription

Phonetic transcription enclosed in brackets [ ] using diacritics to represent exact acoustic or allophonic details.

Diacritic

A specialized modifying symbol added to an IPA character in narrow transcription to indicate a specific articulatory alteration.

Phoneme

The smallest contrastive sound category in a language that can distinguish meaning between words.

Allophone

A non-contrastive phonetic variation of a single phoneme that does not alter word meaning.

Phonotactic Constraints

Language-specific rules defining permissible sound sequences and allowable syllable shapes.

Phonetic (Articulatory) Development

The neuromotor maturation required to physically control, coordinate, and position the articulators for speech sounds.

Phonological Development

The cognitive-linguistic acquisition of the rule-based sound contrasts and organization of a language's sound system.

The Late Eight

The group of late-developing consonants (/θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, tʃ, l, r/) mastered between 7 and 9 years of age.

Phonological Process

A systematic, rule-governed simplification strategy used by typically developing children to modify entire classes of adult speech sounds.

Final Consonant Deletion (FCD)

A phonological process where the final consonant of a syllable or word is omitted, turning CVC words into CV.

Cluster Reduction

A phonological process where one or more consonants in a consonant cluster are omitted.

Stopping of Fricatives

A phonological process where a fricative consonant is replaced by a stop consonant.

Weak (Unstressed) Syllable Deletion

A phonological process where an unstressed syllable in a multisyllabic word is omitted.

Motor Speech Disorder

A speech disorder caused by central or peripheral nervous system damage affecting motor planning, programming, or execution.

Dysarthria

A motor speech disorder caused by neuromuscular impairment resulting in muscle weakness, paralysis, or incoordination.

Adult Apraxia of Speech (AOS)

A motor speech disorder caused by left frontal lobe damage that impairs speech planning and programming without muscle weakness.

Central Nervous System (CNS)

The division of the nervous system consisting of the cerebral hemispheres, cerebellum, brainstem, and spinal cord.

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

The division of the nervous system consisting of cranial and spinal nerves connecting the CNS to peripheral structures.

Gray Matter

Nervous system tissue composed of clusters of neuron cell bodies, dendrites, and synapses.

White Matter

Nervous system tissue composed of bundles of myelinated axonal pathways connecting gray matter centers.

Substantia Nigra

A midbrain nucleus that produces dopamine, an essential neurotransmitter for motor control that degenerates in Parkinson's disease.

Upper Motor Neurons (UMN)

Motor pathways originating in the cerebral cortex that descend to synapse onto motor nuclei in the brainstem or spinal cord.

Lower Motor Neurons (LMN)

Motor neurons extending from brainstem or spinal motor nuclei directly to peripheral muscles via cranial or spinal nerves.

Imprecise Consonants

A perceptual speech feature characterized by slurred, distorted, or clumsy consonant productions and transitions.

Strained-Strangled Voice

A phonatory feature reflecting voice effortfully squeezed through a hyperadducted, constricted glottis.

Harsh Voice

A phonatory feature characterized by a rough, raspy acoustic quality.

Breathy Voice

A phonatory feature marked by continuous audible air escape and thin sound due to incomplete vocal fold adduction.

Distorted Vowels

A perceptual feature where vowel formant resonance and acoustic quality are distorted throughout their entire duration.

Prolonged Intervals

Inappropriate lengthening of pauses between words or syllables.

Hypernasality

Excessive acoustic resonance in the nasal cavity during vowels and oral consonants due to velopharyngeal insufficiency.

Monopitch

A prosodic feature characterized by a flat, unvarying vocal pitch lacking normal intonation.

Monoloudness

A prosodic feature characterized by an inability to dynamically modulate vocal volume.

Excess and Equal Stress

A prosodic abnormality where inappropriate, uniform stress is placed across typically unstressed syllables and monosyllabic words.

Flaccid Dysarthria

A dysarthria subtype caused by LMN or cranial nerve damage, characterized by muscle weakness, flaccidity, and breathy voice.

Spastic Dysarthria

A dysarthria subtype caused by bilateral UMN tract damage, characterized by spasticity, slow rate, and strained-strangled voice.

Ataxic Dysarthria

A dysarthria subtype caused by cerebellar damage, characterized by incoordination, irregular articulatory breakdowns, and a drunk cadence.

Hypokinetic Dysarthria

A dysarthria subtype caused by dopamine depletion in the basal ganglia (Parkinson's disease), characterized by rigidity and monopitch.

Hyperkinetic Dysarthria

A dysarthria subtype caused by basal ganglia circuit disruptions, characterized by involuntary movements and variable rate.

Mixed Dysarthria

A dysarthria subtype resulting from damage across multiple motor systems (e.g., ALS combining UMN and LMN damage).

Unilateral Upper Motor Neuron (UUMN) Dysarthria

A dysarthria subtype caused by unilateral corticobulbar tract damage, resulting in mild unilateral weakness and imprecise consonants.

Left Hemisphere Lateralization

The neurological organization where receptive and expressive language functions are localized predominantly in the left hemisphere.

Broca's Area

The cortical region in the left frontal lobe responsible for expressive language formulation and motor speech output.

Wernicke's Area

The cortical region in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus responsible for auditory language comprehension.

Arcuate Fasciculus

The white matter tract that bidirectionally connects Broca's area and Wernicke's area.

Perisylvian Language Area

The cortical regions and connecting pathways bordering the Sylvian fissure in the left hemisphere that form the core language network.