A Study On The Pronunciation Errors And Coping Strategies Of The Vowels Of Students With Mental Retardation

Due to physical defects and other factors,the speech development of students with mental retardation is relatively backward,which draws many attentions from the field of special education and speech rehabilitation.Pronunciation of simple or compound vowel(of a Chinese syllable)plays an important role in Chinese speech pronunciation,so researchers have focused on the initial consonant(of a Chinese syllable)over the years while ignored the former.Whether the pronunciation of simple or compound vowel is correct or not influences the intelligibility of the language,therefore,the study to the errors about the vowel of students with mental retardation can not only provide related strategies for its language training lesson but promote the improvement of students' verbal ability.The study selects 33 students with mental retardation in grade 1 to 8 from special education school as the object of study,including 21 students with normal mental retardation,and 12 students with Down's syndrome.Finals,syllables,and sentence following test and so on used to test the pronunciation of simple or compound vowel,the study summarizes two types of mistakes of vowel pronunciation from different structures and the shape of a mouth when a person is speaking or pronouncing a certain sound.At the same time,the study tapes the Chinese classes to 1st to 7th graders according to the method of classroom activity.There are 21 classes,and each grade has three classes,which can analyses the reason why students pronounce the vowel mistakenly from two aspects including students and Chinese teaching.This study draws the following conclusions: firstly,there is a significant difference in the vowel pronunciation between students with general mental retardation and those with Down's syndrome,and the scoring rate of students with general mental retardation is significantly higher than that of students with Down's syndrome.Secondly,students with general mental retardation have significantdifferences in different structures and mouth positions.In terms of the types of finals with different structures,the difficulty of pronouncing the nasal finals is greater than that of the compound finals and the single finals,especially the posterior ones.From the point of view of different types of mouthing finals,the pronunciation difficulty of other mouthing finals is relatively small,except the difficulty of mouthing finals.General intelligence obstacle of im and uan vowel pronunciation is the most difficult,its specific pronunciation errors show the im im consonants suffix n and n? is replaced by the I,u,e,im consonants suffix n and n?omitted,front and back,im confused with a little distortion and its specific pronunciation errors show the uan finals in labiodental alternative round labial [v][u] and head vowel u have been omitted.Finally,there are significant differences among Down syndrome students in different structures and mouth positions.From the perspective of the types of finals with different structures,the pronunciation difficulty of the nasal finals is greater than that of the compound finals and the single finals,especially the anterior nasal finals.From the point of view of different types of mouthing finals,the pronunciation difficulty of other mouthing finals is relatively large,except that the pronunciation difficulty of mouthing finals is relatively small.Down syndrome of im and yun yuan vowel pronunciation is the most difficult,its specific pronunciation errors show the im im consonants suffix n and n ? is replaced by the I,u,e,im consonants suffix n and n ? omitted,im confused before and after,and a lot of distortion,the yun yuan specific pronunciation errors show the head vowel finals be replaced has been omitted.This study analyzes the causes of the pronunciation errors of finals from three aspects: students' physiology and psychology,the language environment of dialect area and the teaching in the mentally retarded school.In view of these reasons,some feasible educational Suggestions are put forward: first,to actively train the movement of the articulation organs of students with mental retardation;Second,to actively carry out the vowel sound discrimination training;Thirdly,the integration of Chinese teaching and speech rehabilitation;Fourth,home and school together to create a good language environment for students with intellectual disabilities.Inaddition,in the future research,the number of subjects should be further increased to enrich the understanding of the pronunciation characteristics of finals of students with mental retardation.We can also carry out intervention research on students and teachers to improve the pronunciation of finals of students with mental retardation.