Automatic method of pause measurement for normal and dysarthric speech

Rosen, Kristin M.; Murdoch, Bruce E.; Folker, Joanne E; Vogel, Adam P.; Cahill, Louise; Delatycki, Martin B.; Corben, Louise A.

doi:10.3109/02699200903440983

Cited by 41 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Duffy’s [4] observations in PPA are highly consistent with studies examining acquired AOS subsequent to stroke [22]. Here, we focus on syllable segregation and lexical stress, as measurement from digital recordings of speech is straightforward, does not rely on expert judgments, and can be implemented in automated software routines [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], which standardize and streamline data collection and analysis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Logopenic and Nonfluent Variants of Primary Progressive Aphasia Are Differentiated by Acoustic Measures of Speech Production

et al. 2014

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Differentiation of logopenic (lvPPA) and nonfluent/agrammatic (nfvPPA) variants of Primary Progressive Aphasia is important yet remains challenging since it hinges on expert based evaluation of speech and language production. In this study acoustic measures of speech in conjunction with voxel-based morphometry were used to determine the success of the measures as an adjunct to diagnosis and to explore the neural basis of apraxia of speech in nfvPPA. Forty-one patients (21 lvPPA, 20 nfvPPA) were recruited from a consecutive sample with suspected frontotemporal dementia. Patients were diagnosed using the current gold-standard of expert perceptual judgment, based on presence/absence of particular speech features during speaking tasks. Seventeen healthy age-matched adults served as controls. MRI scans were available for 11 control and 37 PPA cases; 23 of the PPA cases underwent amyloid ligand PET imaging. Measures, corresponding to perceptual features of apraxia of speech, were periods of silence during reading and relative vowel duration and intensity in polysyllable word repetition. Discriminant function analyses revealed that a measure of relative vowel duration differentiated nfvPPA cases from both control and lvPPA cases (r 2 = 0.47) with 88% agreement with expert judgment of presence of apraxia of speech in nfvPPA cases. VBM analysis showed that relative vowel duration covaried with grey matter intensity in areas critical for speech motor planning and programming: precentral gyrus, supplementary motor area and inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally, only affected in the nfvPPA group. This bilateral involvement of frontal speech networks in nfvPPA potentially affects access to compensatory mechanisms involving right hemisphere homologues. Measures of silences during reading also discriminated the PPA and control groups, but did not increase predictive accuracy. Findings suggest that a measure of relative vowel duration from of a polysyllable word repetition task may be sufficient for detecting most cases of apraxia of speech and distinguishing between nfvPPA and lvPPA.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Logopenic and Nonfluent Variants of Primary Progressive Aphasia Are Differentiated by Acoustic Measures of Speech Production

et al. 2014

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“…This cutpoint is similar to the value found to differentiate groups in prior studies (32). Although PPT does not differentiate between speech breathing pauses and non-breathing pauses, the 300 ms minimum pause threshold used in this study has been previously shown to be an optimal threshold for obtaining stable estimates of pausing in speakers with ALS (33) and prior research has shown that breathing-related pauses are typically over 150–250 ms in duration at normal speaking rates (34, 35). Nonetheless, our pause data may include some non-breathing pauses in addition to breathing pauses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The diagnostic utility of patient-report and speech-language pathologists’ ratings for detecting the early onset of bulbar symptoms due to ALS

Allison

Yunusova

Campbell

et al. 2017

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration

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Objective This study aimed to determine the diagnostic utility of clinician speech ratings and patient self-report for detecting early bulbar changes associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), compared to instrumentation-based speech measures. Methods Thirty-six individuals with ALS and 17 healthy control participants were included. Patients’ awareness of early bulbar motor involvement was assessed using self-reported scores on the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale-Revised (ALSFRS-R). Clinicians’ detection of early bulbar motor involvement was assessed through perceptual speech ratings by two experienced speech-language pathologists. Participants with ALS were grouped as ‘bulbar pre-symptomatic’ or ‘bulbar symptomatic’ based on self-report and clinician ratings, and compared to healthy controls on six instrumentation-based speech measures. ROC analysis was used to compare the sensitivity and specificity of perceptual and instrumentation-based measures for detecting bulbar changes in pre-symptomatic individuals. Results Early bulbar changes that were documented using instrumentation-based measures were undetected by both patients and clinicians. ROC analyses indicated that instrumentation-based measures outperformed clinicians’ scaled severity ratings, and that percent pause time was the best measure for differentiating healthy controls from bulbar pre-symptomatic individuals with ALS. Conclusions Findings suggested that instrumentation-based measures of speech may be necessary for early detection of bulbar changes due to ALS.

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“…For example, the current pause (silence) approaches [24,27,29] determine a single intensity threshold based on the entire sample, whereas a moving window approach may ultimately prove more reliable and accurate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The intensity threshold was set to 0.65 of the distance between the reference intensity (equal to 0.95 of the maximum intensity) and the floor intensity (minimum). The reference intensity selection of 0.95 of the maximum intensity has been found to be more robust than the use of the maximum, median, or modal intensities due to irregular bursts of energy that often occur with sporadically loud syllables or short phrases in spontaneous speech (e.g., emphatic stress) [24]. Analysis yielded the following measures: total number of silences, mean silence time, SD of silence length, total speech time, and speech-to-silence ratio.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparability of Modern Recording Devices for Speech Analysis: Smartphone, Landline, Laptop, and Hard Disc Recorder

Vogel¹,

Rosen²,

Morgan

et al. 2014

Folia Phoniatr Logop

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Background: Large-scale multi-site experimental and clinical speech protocols require high-fidelity, easy-to-use speech recording technologies. However, little is known about the reliability and comparability of affordable, portable and commonly used technologies with traditional well-validated devices (e.g., a hard disc recorder with a high-quality microphone). Objective: To examine the comparability of speech and voice samples acquired from protocols involving high- and low-quality devices. Methods: Speech samples were acquired simultaneously from 15 healthy adults using four devices and analyzed acoustically for measures of timing and voice quality. For the purpose of making initial comparisons, methods were deemed comparable if the resultant acoustic data yielded root mean squared error values ≤10% and statistically significant Spearman's correlation coefficients. Results: The data suggest that there is significant and widespread variability in the quality and reliability between different acquisition methods for voice and speech recording. Not one method provided statistically similar data to the protocol using the benchmark device (i.e., a high-quality recorder coupled with a condenser microphone). Acoustic analysis cannot be assumed to be comparable if different recording methods are used to record speech. Conclusions: Findings have implications for researchers and clinicians hoping to make comparisons between labs or, where lower-quality devices are suggested, to offer equal fidelity.

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Automatic method of pause measurement for normal and dysarthric speech

Cited by 41 publications

References 39 publications

Logopenic and Nonfluent Variants of Primary Progressive Aphasia Are Differentiated by Acoustic Measures of Speech Production

Logopenic and Nonfluent Variants of Primary Progressive Aphasia Are Differentiated by Acoustic Measures of Speech Production

The diagnostic utility of patient-report and speech-language pathologists’ ratings for detecting the early onset of bulbar symptoms due to ALS

Comparability of Modern Recording Devices for Speech Analysis: Smartphone, Landline, Laptop, and Hard Disc Recorder

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