Rating the intelligibility of dysarthic speech amongst people with Parkinson’s Disease: a comparison of trained and untrained listeners

Smith, Colleen M.; Patel, Smitaa; Woolley, Rebecca; Brady, Marian C.; Rick, Caroline; Halfpenny, Rhiannon; Rontiris, Alexia; Knox-Smith, Lucy; Dowling, Francis; Clarke, Carl E; Au, Pui; Ives, Natalie; Wheatley, Keith; Sackley, Catherine

doi:10.1080/02699206.2019.1604806

Cited by 12 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…In terms of listener experience, the findings of this study support those of DePaul and Kent (2000) and McGarr (1983) in that the experienced group showed higher intelligibility scores compared with those of the naïve group. On the other hand, findings are in contrast to those in studies such as Smith et al (2019), who found no difference in scores obtained by orthographic transcription from trained and untrained listeners. However, the trained listeners in Smith et al's study were second year SLT students who might not have the same level of experience with unclear speech as the experienced listeners in the current study, who had been working with people with speech and learning difficulties for at least 3 years.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…McGarr (1983) suggested that the experienced listeners, who had at least a year's experience of listening to the speech of people who are deaf, were familiar with the speech characteristics of this group and were able to compensate for the atypical features. On the other hand, Smith et al (2019) also used orthographic transcription of sentences to compare intelligibility scores in speakers with PD when measured by experienced (SLT students) and inexperienced listeners, and found no difference between the two listener groups. It may be that if the listeners had more clinical experience, outcomes may have been different.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, Smith et al . (2019) also used orthographic transcription of sentences to compare intelligibility scores in speakers with PD when measured by experienced (SLT students) and inexperienced listeners, and found no difference between the two listener groups. It may be that if the listeners had more clinical experience, outcomes may have been different.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intelligibility in Down syndrome: Effect of measurement method and listener experience

O’Leary

Lee

O’Toole

et al. 2021

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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Background: Speech intelligibility is a global indicator of the severity of a speech problem. It is a measure that has been used frequently in research and clinical assessment of speech. Previous studies have shown that factors, such as measurement method and listener experience, can influence speech intelligibility scores. However, these factors of speech intelligibility assessment have not yet been investigated in people with Down syndrome (DS). Aims: To compare the speech intelligibility scores in speakers with DS measured using two methods: orthographic transcription and visual analogue scale (VAS), by two groups of listeners, experienced listeners and naïve listeners. Also, to examine the relationship across the four sets of speech intelligibility scores by means of correlational analysis.Methods & Procedures: A total of 30 adolescents and adults with DS read or repeated 12 sentences from a standardized test of intelligibility for adults with dysarthria. Each sentence was saved as a separate sound file and the 360 sentences were divided to form eight sets of stimuli. A total of 32 adults (16 experienced and 16 naïve) served as listeners of speech intelligibility. Each listener heard a single set of sentences and independently estimated the level of intelligibility for each sentence using a VAS in one task and wrote down the words perceived (i.e., orthographic transcription) in another task. The order of the two tasks was counterbalanced across listeners and the tasks were completed at least 1 week apart.Outcomes & Results: Repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), confirmed by mixed-methods analysis, showed that the scores obtained using orthographic transcription were significantly higher than those obtained using VAS; and the experienced listeners' scores were significantly higher than the naïve listeners' scores. Spearman rank correlation analysis showed that the four sets of scores across all conditions were strongly positively correlated with each other. Conclusions & Implications: Listeners, both experienced and naïve, may udge speech in DS differently when using orthographic transcription versus VAS as the method of measurement. In addition, experienced listeners can judge speech intelligibility differently compared with listeners who are less exposed to unclear speech, which may not represent 'real-world' functional communicative ability. Speech and language therapists should be aware of the effect of these factors when measuring intelligibility scores and direct comparison of scores obtained using different procedures and by different groups of listeners is not recommended.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intelligibility in Down syndrome: Effect of measurement method and listener experience

O’Leary

Lee

O’Toole

et al. 2021

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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“…We also anticipate that the new, individualized modeling approach of spectral brain pathology for each patient may translate and be meaningful to other clinical populations. Our approach to speech impairment quantification is predicated on the notion that clinical endpoints for speech production studies in PD need to improve speech perception by human raters [11][12][13]52,53 . One novel contribution of the present study is rating of speech features from non-experts through an intuitive and interactive app (Audio-Tokens) 54 , that facilitates simultaneous comparison of speech samples from multiple study participants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The optimal outcome of remediation speech therapies in PD is improved intelligibility to human listeners, hence the value of human assessment of speech impairments as an alternative. Human ratings of speech impairments in PD are highly reliable across raters [11][12][13] , time points 14 , and levels of rater expertise 13 , and can contribute to predicting disease progression 12 and therapeutic outcomes 14 beyond simpler acoustical metrics.…”

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confidence: 99%

Aberrant neurophysiological signaling underlies speech impairments in Parkinson’s disease

Wiesman

Donhauser

Degroot

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Difficulty producing intelligible speech is a common and debilitating symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD). Yet, both the robust evaluation of speech impairments and the identification of the affected brain systems are challenging. We examine the spectral and spatial definitions of the functional neuropathology underlying reduced speech quality in patients with PD using a new approach to characterize speech impairments and a novel brain-imaging marker. We found that the interactive scoring of speech impairments in PD (N=59) is reliable across non-expert raters, and better related to the hallmark motor and cognitive impairments of PD than automatically-extracted acoustical features. By relating these speech impairment ratings to neurophysiological deviations from healthy adults (N=65), we show that articulation impairments in patients with PD are robustly predicted from aberrant activity in the left inferior frontal cortex, and that functional connectivity of this region with somatomotor cortices mediates the influence of cognitive decline on speech deficits.

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More than Words: Cross-Linguistic Exploration of Parkinson’s Disease Identification from Speech

Verkhodanova

Trčková

Coler

et al. 2020

Speech and Computer

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Rating the intelligibility of dysarthic speech amongst people with Parkinson’s Disease: a comparison of trained and untrained listeners

Abstract: Rating the intelligibility of dysarthic speech amongst people with Parkinson's Disease: a comparison of trained (Speech and Language Therapy students) and untrained listeners

Cited by 12 publications

References 11 publications

Intelligibility in Down syndrome: Effect of measurement method and listener experience

Intelligibility in Down syndrome: Effect of measurement method and listener experience

Aberrant neurophysiological signaling underlies speech impairments in Parkinson’s disease

More than Words: Cross-Linguistic Exploration of Parkinson’s Disease Identification from Speech

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