Teaching English to the healthy and speech training to the intellectually challenged : an integrative analysis of speech and body movements

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A speech synchronized two-dimensional motion capture system was designed in order to correlate body movements and speech. This has made the measurement of movement in relation to connected speech possible. At the firs stage of software development, 200 ms to 300 ms lag time between speech waves and video images was detected, which was not within an acceptable error range. Almost a year and a half was consumed to calibrate the lag within less than 33.3 ms.Three predominant tendencies are detected concerning observations on hand movements and their relation to speech by utilising a speech synchronized two-dimensional motion capture system 1) various patterns of trajectory ＆ velocity of hand movements display patterns of pathological features among the intellectually challenged but not among normal subjects 2) the intentional increase of downward and/or upward velocity of hand movements without any reference to the articulation of speech influences the fundamental frequency and the pitch pattern. 3) there exists minimum time lag between the onset of fundamental frequency and the maximum velocity of hand movements among the normal people but not the intellectually challenged.