Fluent
Fluency (also called volubility and eloquency) is the property of a person or of a system that delivers information quickly and with expertise. Language use Language fluency is one of a variety of terms used to characterize or measure a person's language ability, often used in conjunction with accuracy and complexity. Although there are no widely agreed-upon definitions or measures of language fluency, someone is typically said to be fluent if their use of the language appears ''fluid'', or natural, coherent, and easy as opposed to slow, halting use. In other words, fluency is often described as the ability to produce language on demand and be understood. Varying definitions of fluency characterize it by the language user’s automaticity, their speed and coherency of language use, or the length and rate of their speech output. Theories of automaticity postulate that more fluent language users can manage all of the components of language use without paying attention to each in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stuttering
Stuttering, also known as stammering, is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words, or phrases as well as involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the person who stutters is unable to produce sounds. The term ''stuttering'' is most commonly associated with involuntary sound repetition, but it also encompasses the abnormal hesitation or pausing before speech, referred to by people who stutter as ''blocks'', and the prolongation of certain sounds, usually vowels or semivowels. According to Watkins et al., stuttering is a disorder of "selection, initiation, and execution of motor sequences necessary for fluent speech production". arlson, N. (2013). Human Communication. In Physiology of behavior (11th ed., pp. 497–500). Boston: Allyn and Bacon./ref> For many people who stutter, repetition is the main concern. The term "stuttering" covers a wide range of severity, from barely perceptible imp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of methods, including spoken, sign, and written language. Many languages, including the most widely-spoken ones, have writing systems that enable sounds or signs to be recorded for later reactivation. Human language is highly variable between cultures and across time. Human languages have the properties of productivity and displacement, and rely on social convention and learning. Estimates of the number of human languages in the world vary between and . Precise estimates depend on an arbitrary distinction (dichotomy) established between languages and dialects. Natural languages are spoken, signed, or both; however, any language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli – for example, writing, whi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Language Acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. Language acquisition involves structures, rules and representation. The capacity to use language successfully requires one to acquire a range of tools including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and an extensive vocabulary. Language can be vocalized as in speech, or manual as in sign. Human language capacity is represented in the brain. Even though human language capacity is finite, one can say and understand an infinite number of sentences, which is based on a syntactic principle called recursion. Evidence suggests that every individual has three recursive mechanisms that allow sentences to go indeterminately. These three mechanisms are: ''relativization'', ''complementation'' and ''coordination''. There are two ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Critical Period
In developmental psychology and developmental biology, a critical period is a maturational stage in the lifespan of an organism during which the nervous system is especially sensitive to certain environmental stimuli. If, for some reason, the organism does not receive the appropriate stimulus during this "critical period" to learn a given skill or trait, it may be difficult, ultimately less successful, or even impossible, to develop certain associated functions later in life. Functions that are indispensable to an organism's survival, such as vision, are particularly likely to develop during critical periods. "Critical period" also relates to the ability to acquire one's first language. Researchers found that people who passed the "critical period" would not acquire their first language fluently. Some researchers differentiate between 'strong critical periods' and 'weak critical periods' (a.k.a. 'sensitive' periods) — defining 'weak critical periods' / 'sensitive periods' as mor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Speech Disfluencies
A speech disfluency, also spelled speech dysfluency, is any of various breaks, irregularities, or non-lexical vocables which occur within the flow of otherwise fluent speech. These include "false starts", i.e. words and sentences that are cut off mid-utterance; phrases that are restarted or repeated and repeated syllables; "fillers", i.e. grunts or non-lexical utterances such as ''huh'', ''uh'', ''erm'', ''um'', ''well'', ''so'', ''like'', and ''hmm''; and "repaired" utterances, i.e. instances of speakers correcting their own slips of the tongue or mispronunciations (before anyone else gets a chance to). ''Huh'' is claimed to be a universal syllable. Fillers Fillers are parts of speech which are not generally recognized as purposeful or containing formal meaning, usually expressed as pauses such as ''uh'', ''like'' and ''er'', but also extending to repairs ("He was wearing a black—uh, I mean a blue, a blue shirt"), and articulation problems such as stuttering. Use i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Phonics
Phonics is a method for teaching people how to Reading, read and write an alphabetic language (such as English alphabet, English, Arabic alphabet, Arabic or Russian alphabet, Russian). It is done by demonstrating the relationship between the sounds of the spoken language (phonemes), and the letters or groups of letters (graphemes) or syllables of the written language. In English, this is also known as the alphabetic principle or the ''Alphabetic code''. Phonics is taught using a variety of approaches, for example: a) learning ''individual'' sounds and their corresponding letters (e.g. the word cat has three letters and three sounds c - a - t, (in International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: , , ), whereas the word flower has six letters but four sounds: f - l - ow - er, (IPA , , , ), or b) learning the sounds of letters or groups of letters, at the word level, such as similar sounds (e.g., cat, can, call), or Syllable#Rime, rimes (e.g., hat, mat and sat have the same rime, "at"), or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Language Production
Language production is the production of spoken or written language. In psycholinguistics, it describes all of the stages between having a concept to express and translating that concept into linguistic forms. These stages have been described in two types of processing models: the lexical access models and the serial models. Through these models, psycholinguists can look into how speeches are produced in different ways, such as when the speaker is bilingual. Psycholinguists learn more about these models and different kinds of speech by using language production research methods that include collecting speech errors and elicited production tasks. Stages involved Language production consists of several interdependent processes which transform a nonlinguistic message into a spoken, signed, or written linguistic signal. Though the following steps proceed in this approximate order, there are plenty of interaction and communication between them. The process of message planning is an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cluttering
Cluttering is a speech and communication disorder characterized by a rapid rate of speech, erratic rhythm, and poor syntax or grammar, making speech difficult to understand. Classification Cluttering is a speech and communication disorder that has also been described as a fluency disorder. It is defined as: Signs and symptoms Stuttering is often misapplied as a common term referring to any dysfluency. It is also often incorrectly applied to normal dysfluency rather than dysfluency from a disorder. Cluttered speech is exhibited by normal speakers, and is often referred to as stuttering. This is especially true when the speaker is nervous, where nervous speech more closely resembles cluttering than stuttering. Cluttering is sometimes confused with stuttering. Both communication disorders break the normal flow of speech, but they are distinct. A stutterer has a coherent pattern of thoughts, but may have a difficult time vocally expressing those thoughts; in contrast, a clutter ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Working Memory
Working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can hold information temporarily. It is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision-making and behavior. Working memory is often used synonymously with short-term memory, but some theorists consider the two forms of memory distinct, assuming that working memory allows for the manipulation of stored information, whereas short-term memory only refers to the short-term storage of information. Working memory is a theoretical concept central to cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and neuroscience. History The term "working memory" was coined by Miller, Galanter, and Pribram, and was used in the 1960s in the context of theories that likened the mind to a computer. In 1968, Atkinson and Shiffrin used the term to describe their "short-term store". What we now call working memory was formerly referred to variously as a "short-term store" or short-term memory, primary memory, immediate memory, operant memo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Synthetic Phonics
Synthetic phonics, also known as ''blended phonics'' or ''inductive phonics'', is a method of teaching English reading which first teaches the letter sounds and then builds up to blending these sounds together to achieve full pronunciation of whole words. Overview Synthetic phonics refers to a family of programs which aim to teach reading and writing through the following methods: * Teaching students the correspondence between ''written letters'' (graphemes) and ''speech sounds'' (phonemes). For example, the words ''me'' and ''pony'' have the same sound at the end, but use different letters. * Teaching students to read words by ''blending'': identifying the graphemes (letters) in the word, recalling the corresponding phonemes (sounds), and saying the phonemes together to form the sound of the whole word. * Teaching students to write words by ''segmenting'': identifying the phonemes of the word, recalling the corresponding graphemes, then writing the graphemes together to form ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Learning Disability
Learning disability, learning disorder, or learning difficulty (British English) is a condition in the brain that causes difficulties comprehending or processing information and can be caused by several different factors. Given the "difficulty learning in a typical manner", this does not exclude the ability to learn in a different manner. Therefore, some people can be more accurately described as having a "learning difference", thus avoiding any misconception of being disabled with a lack of ability to learn and possible negative stereotyping. In the United Kingdom, the term "learning disability" generally refers to an intellectual disability, while difficulties such as dyslexia and dyspraxia are usually referred to as "learning difficulties". While ''learning disability'' and ''learning disorder'' are often used interchangeably, they differ in many ways. Disorder refers to significant learning problems in an academic area. These problems, however, are not enough to warrant ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Critical Period Hypothesis
The critical period hypothesis or sensitive period hypothesis claims that there is an ideal time window of brain development to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment, after which further language acquisition becomes much more difficult and effortful. It is the subject of a long-standing debate in linguistics. and language acquisition over the extent to which the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age. The critical period hypothesis was first proposed by Montreal neurologist Wilder Penfield and co-author Lamar Roberts in their 1959 book ''Speech and Brain Mechanisms'', and was popularized by Eric Lenneberg in 1967 with ''Biological Foundations of Language.'' The critical period hypothesis states that the first few years of life is the crucial time in which an individual can acquire a first language if presented with adequate stimuli, and that first-language acquisition relies on neuroplasticity. If language input does not occur until after this ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |