MTEL Speech flashcards
MTEL Speech · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Subglottal pressure
- Air pressure below the vocal folds. It drives phonation and rises with loudness and stressed syllables; typical conversational speech requires roughly 5-8 cm H2O above the phonation threshold.
- Cricothyroid muscle
- Intrinsic laryngeal muscle that lengthens and tenses the vocal folds, raising fundamental frequency. It is the primary muscle for pitch elevation during speech and singing.
- Posterior cricoarytenoid
- The only intrinsic laryngeal muscle that abducts the vocal folds, opening the glottis. Its action is essential for inspiration and for voiceless consonants.
- Myoelastic-aerodynamic theory
- Explanation of phonation in which airflow and subglottal pressure separate the vocal folds while their elasticity and the Bernoulli effect bring them back together, producing vibration.
- Fundamental frequency
- The rate of vocal fold vibration, perceived as pitch. Adult male voices average about 100-150 Hz and adult female voices about 180-250 Hz in conversational speech.
- Formants
- Resonant peaks of the vocal tract that shape vowel quality. F1 relates mainly to tongue height and F2 mainly to tongue advancement; F3 also contributes to vowel identity.
- Velopharyngeal closure
- Closing of the soft palate against the pharyngeal wall, sealing the nasal cavity from the oral cavity. It is required for all non-nasal English phonemes.
- Manner of articulation
- How airflow is modified in the vocal tract: complete stoppage (stop), partial obstruction with turbulence (fricative), stop plus fricative release (affricate), nasal, liquid, or glide.
- Place of articulation
- Where the constriction occurs: bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, postalveolar, palatal, velar, or glottal. Place distinguishes phonemes such as /p/ versus /t/.
- Cognates
- Pairs of phonemes identical in place and manner but differing in voicing, such as /p/-/b/, /t/-/d/, /k/-/g/, /f/-/v/, and /s/-/z/.
- Phoneme versus allophone
- A phoneme is a contrastive sound unit that changes meaning; an allophone is a noncontrastive variant of a phoneme, such as aspirated [pʰ] in 'pot' versus unaspirated [p] in 'spot'.
- Minimal pair
- Two words differing in only one phoneme, such as 'pat' and 'bat'. Minimal pairs demonstrate phonemic contrast and are used to test and treat phonological errors.
- Stimulability
- A child's ability to produce a misarticulated sound correctly when given a model and cues. High stimulability predicts faster progress and informs target selection.
- Phonological process
- A systematic simplification pattern children apply to sound classes, such as final consonant deletion or cluster reduction. Persistence past the expected age indicates a phonological disorder.
- Fronting
- Replacing a velar or palatal sound with an alveolar one, as in 'tat' for 'cat'. It typically resolves by about age 3.5 to 4 years.
- Cluster reduction
- Deleting one member of a consonant cluster, as in 'poon' for 'spoon'. It usually resolves by age 4 and is common in typical phonological development.
- Intelligibility versus comprehensibility
- Intelligibility is how much a listener understands from the acoustic signal alone; comprehensibility also includes listener knowledge of context, topic, and the speaker.
- Speech-language pathologist scope
- Professionals who assess and treat speech sound, fluency, voice, language, and swallowing disorders, working in schools, clinics, hospitals, and private practice under state licensure and ASHA certification.
- Individualized Education Program
- A legally binding plan under IDEA specifying a student's present levels, measurable goals, services, and placement. Speech-language services may be the primary or a related service.
- Response to Intervention
- A multi-tier prevention framework using universal screening, targeted small-group instruction, and intensive intervention with progress monitoring before referral for special education evaluation.
- Dynamic assessment
- Testing that includes a teaching phase and measures learning potential, useful for distinguishing language difference from disorder in culturally and linguistically diverse students.
- Norm-referenced assessment
- Standardized testing comparing a student's score to a normative sample, reported as standard scores and percentiles. It must be administered and interpreted according to the manual.
- Standard score
- A transformed score with a known mean and standard deviation, commonly mean 100 and SD 15 for language tests. Scores near 85 or below often fall in the at-risk range.
- Percentile rank
- The percentage of the normative sample scoring at or below a given raw score. A percentile of 16 corresponds roughly to one standard deviation below the mean.
- Baseline data
- Pre-intervention measurements of a target behavior taken across several sessions. They establish a comparison point for judging whether intervention changed performance.
- Progress monitoring
- Frequent, brief measurement of a target skill using equivalent probes, graphed over time. It supports data-based decisions to continue, adjust, or exit intervention.
- Evidence-based practice
- Integrating the best available research, clinical expertise, and client values and preferences. It guides selection of assessment and treatment procedures.
- Confidentiality and FERPA
- Federal law protecting education records, including assessment reports and IEPs. Information may be shared only with those having legitimate educational interest or with written consent.
- Informed consent
- Agreement to assessment or treatment given after the client or guardian receives full information about purpose, procedures, risks, benefits, and alternatives, and gives permission voluntarily.
- Cultural and linguistic bias
- Test features that unfairly disadvantage examinees from certain backgrounds, such as unfamiliar vocabulary or dialect-scored items. Bias must be considered when interpreting scores.
- Dialect versus disorder
- A dialect is a rule-governed language variety; a disorder is an impairment relative to the speaker's own community norms. Dialect differences alone do not warrant a diagnosis.
- Accommodations for assessment
- Permitted changes to testing conditions, such as extended time or separate setting, that remove barriers without altering what the test measures. They must be documented and justified.