Sentence Length Effects on Intelligibility in Two Groups of Older Children With Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Darling-White, Meghan; Polkowitz, Rachel

doi:10.1044/2023_ajslp-23-00093

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 67 publications

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“…Due to the unevenness of the effect here, however, we regard these utterance length effects foremost as methodological factors that are likely specific to this task and these sentences. Indeed, others applying the TOCS+ have found an uneven effect of length on intelligibility in clinical populations (Darling-White & Polkowitz, 2023).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speech development between 30 and 119 months in typical children III: Interaction between speaking rate and intelligibility

Mahr,

Rathouz,

Hustad

2024

Preprint

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Purpose: Earlier work has established developmental benchmarks for intelligibility and articulation rate, but the intersection of these two variables remains unexplored. This study examines the interaction between intelligibility and speaking rate in typically developing children between the ages 2;6 and 9;11 and evaluates whether children show a speed-accuracy tradeoff in their habitual speech production.Method: Speech samples of varying lengths were collected from 538 typically developing children. Intelligibility was measured as the number of words correctly transcribed by untrained adult listeners, and speaking rate was calculated in number of syllables per second. Regression models estimated the effects of age, utterance length, and speaking rate on intelligibility.Results: Intelligibility increased with age and decreased with utterance length. There was a trend for intelligibility to decrease with increased speaking rate, especially in longer utterances. At the individual level, most children had a negative effective of speaking rate on intelligibility. Conclusions: Our findings support the hypothesis that children’s speech is subject to a speed-accuracy tradeoff where increased speaking rate leads to reduced articulatory accuracy and hence reduced intelligibility. Further research is needed on how to apply this tradeoff in a clinical setting.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speech development between 30 and 119 months in typical children III: Interaction between speaking rate and intelligibility

Mahr,

Rathouz,

Hustad

2024

Preprint

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A Preliminary Investigation of Within-Word Silent Intervals Produced by Children With and Without Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Darling-White,

Sisk

2024

Am J Speech Lang Pathol

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Purpose: The categorization of silent intervals during speech production is necessary for accurate measurement of articulation rate and pauses. The primary purpose of this preliminary study was to examine the within-word silent interval associated with the stop closure in word-final stop consonants produced by children with and without neurodevelopmental disorders. Method: Seven children diagnosed with either cerebral palsy or Down syndrome (i.e., children with neurodevelopmental disorders) and eight typically developing children produced a reading passage. Participants were between the ages of 11 and 16 years. Fifty-eight words from the reading passage were identified as having word-final stop consonants. The closure duration of the word-final stop consonant was calculated, both in absolute duration and percent pause time. The articulation rate of the entire passage was calculated. The number of closure durations that met or exceeded the minimum duration threshold to be considered a pause (150 ms) was examined descriptively. Results: Children with neurodevelopmental disorders produced significantly longer closure durations and significantly slower articulation rates than typically developing children. Children with neurodevelopmental disorders produced closure durations that met or exceeded the minimum duration threshold of a pause, but typically developing children, generally, did not. Conclusion: These data indicate the need to examine the location of silent intervals that meet the minimum duration threshold of a pause and correct for articulatory events during the measurement of articulation rate and pauses in children with neurodevelopmental disorders.

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The Impact of Clear and Loud Speech Cues on Acoustic and Perceptual Features of Speech Production in Adolescents With Down Syndrome

Darling-White,

McHugh

2024

Am J Speech Lang Pathol

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Purpose: There are few evidence-based speech interventions designed to alter speech production in a way that ultimately results in increased speech intelligibility in adolescents with Down syndrome (DS). The primary purpose of this study was to examine the impact of clear and loud speech cues on acoustic and perceptual features of speech production in adolescents with DS. Method: Eight adolescents diagnosed with DS repeated sentences of varying lengths in three conditions: habitual, big mouth (i.e., clear speech), and strong voice (i.e., loud speech). Four hundred eighty adult listeners (20 listeners per adolescent per condition) provided orthographic transcriptions of adolescent's speech, which were used to calculate intelligibility scores. Acoustic measures of speech rate, articulation rate, proportion of time spent pausing, vocal intensity, and fundamental frequency were calculated for each sentence. Results: The big mouth condition resulted in significantly increased intelligibility, slowed speech and articulation rates, increased pauses, increased vocal intensity, and increased fundamental frequency. The strong voice condition resulted in significantly increased vocal intensity and fundamental frequency, but no other changes. Speech rate was the only variable that explained any of the variance in intelligibility. Conclusions: Adolescents with DS respond differently to clear and loud speech cues. In particular, clear speech cues resulted in significant increases in intelligibility, but loud speech cues did not. Clear speech cues hold promise as an intervention strategy for adolescents with DS.

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Sentence Length Effects on Intelligibility in Two Groups of Older Children With Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Cited by 5 publications

References 67 publications

Speech development between 30 and 119 months in typical children III: Interaction between speaking rate and intelligibility

Speech development between 30 and 119 months in typical children III: Interaction between speaking rate and intelligibility

A Preliminary Investigation of Within-Word Silent Intervals Produced by Children With and Without Neurodevelopmental Disorders

The Impact of Clear and Loud Speech Cues on Acoustic and Perceptual Features of Speech Production in Adolescents With Down Syndrome

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