Design And Application Of Articulation Training Tools For /s/ And /sh/ In Mandarin

The articulation training for the fricative/s/and/sh/in Mandarin is always the key and difficult point due to the lack of effective and targeted training tools for these two phonemes in the process of rehabilitation.This study analysesed the results of the phonetics research and objective measurements on these two phonemes with X-rays and EPG. According to the results, we comfirm that the pronunciation of/s/is based on a apex-upper-gum mode and/sh/on a lamina-former-palate mode. We have designed and drawn the training tools for the target phoneme with Solidworks and produced them with medical silicone rubber.Two groups of subjects were chosen to receive an articulation training for the target phonemes.One group was trained with the tool of/s/and the other was with the tool of/sh/.Both the two groups were trained for 4 times, each time 30 minutes. Compared the average acquisition rates(AAR) of the monosyllabic words of the two target phonemes before and after the training and the results showed that.the AAR of /s/is raised from 1.25% to 91.87% and the AAR of/sh/from 0% to 89.5%.In addition, the study selected 4 children:one with language development delay, Down’s Symdrome, mental retardation and heaing and visial impairment to receive an articulation training with the assistance of the training tool of /s/; and 4 children trained with the training tool of /sh/, one with language development delay, autism, mentral retardation and hearing and visial impairment. The results showed that the acquision rates of all the subjects were improved.