When the primary mode of communication is speech, the crucial ingredient for successful communication is intelligible speech. The speech of children with disordered phonologies is often unintelligible. Accurate and reliable measurement of speech with compromised intelligibility is essential if appropriate treatment procedures are to be chosen and implemented. The focus of this investigation was the measurement of speech intelligibility in young children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the subjective method of trained ear estimation and the objective method of orthographic transcription when measuring the speech intelligibility of young speakers with a wide range of phonological profiency. For this study, the standard measurement of intelligibility was operationally defined as the percentage of words understood in a continuous speech sample derived from orthographic transcription of the sample. The secondary purpose was to investigate the accuracy of the speech-language pathologists' estimates as compared to the standard measure for each of the three groups: (a) the children with the most intelligibility, (b) with average intelligibility, and (c) with the least intelligibility. Data were collected from 47 children, aged 4:0 to 5:6, who comprised three groups with varying levels of intelligibility. Two groups of listeners who were unfamiliar with the speakers, but familiar with the topic, rated the children's percentage of intelligibility from continuous speech samples via orthographic transcription or trained ear estimation. The two methods of measuring speech intelligibility investigated in this study were found to correlate highly (£ = .96). However, there was a significant difference between the percentages derived from orthographic transcription and those derived from trained ear estimation for some speakers. The 1-test analyses revealed significant differences between the two measures for the two most intelligible groups, and no significant difference for the least intelligible group. It appears that the subjective method of estimating speech intelligibility with trained ears correlates with the objective method of orthographic transcription, but yields a different percentage score for some speakers.

Linguistic diversification within our public schools has demanded professional responsibility from speech-language pathologists (SLPs) serving nonstandard English speaking students. Understanding and recognizing normal cultural linguistic differences is the responsibility of the SLP. This study focused on the relationship of three speech features to intelligibility ratings of 10 preschool aged Black English speakers as assigned by 4 licensed standard English speaking SLPs with varying experience. The SLPs also rated the perceived effect of these speech features (i.e., articulation, speaking rate, and resonance) on intelligibility. Using the Pearson product-moment correlation, ratings were correlated and found to demonstrate an association between intelligibility ratings and all three speech features assessed. To determine which speech feature affected intelligibility the most, a linear association using a stepwise regression was applied to all listeners' ratings. For 3 of the 4 listeners, the strongest association between intelligibility and articulation. Ratings of the 4th listener, the listener with the most experience(> 3 years) demonstrated the strong association between intelligibility and resonance. The listener with _the least amount of experience tended to assign higher severity ratings to ratings for intelligibility, rate, and resonance than did the other listeners. Findings from this study demonstrate a need for more studies within the area of Black English as well as further investigative studies to assess listeners' perception of dialectical differences based on the experience within linguistically different or similar communities. Various measures of intelligibility of Black English speakers should also be explored for more accurate assessment tools for this population. Clinical implications focus on the SLP's responsibility to be experienced and knowledgeable of the linguistic community they are serving.

There is an ever-growing and increasing amount of technology options that use speech recognition software. Currently, the market includes smartphones, computers, and individual smart home personal assistants that allow for hands-free access to this technology. Research studies have explored the utility of these assistive devices for the completion of activities of daily living; however, there is limited research looking at the accuracy of voice recognition software within smart home personal assistants in populations with disordered speech. In persons with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), symptoms include changes to motor functions, speech in particular, and it is unknown how some of these devices may respond to their disordered speech. The present study aimed to examine the accuracy of the Amazon Echo to respond appropriately to commands given by dysarthric patients with ALS. Participants were asked to read a variety of commands to an Amazon Echo. The sentences and responses by the Amazon Echo were audio-recorded for transcription and intelligibility ratings, which were then analyzed to look for relationships between intelligibility, auditory-perceptual features of speech, and sentence type. Results revealed there was no significant relationship between command intelligibility and accuracy of response by the Amazon Echo, nor was there a significant relationship between any of the auditory-perceptual ratings and accuracy of response. There was, however, a significant and positive association between conversational intelligibility and accuracy of responses by the Amazon Echo. This study provides support for use of hands-free assistive technology in patients with ALS to aid in the maintenance of quality of life and activities of daily living.

<p>Abstract: This paper is based on a qualitative investigation concerning the effect of errors on the intelligibility of learner texts and whether there are some errors that can be considered graver than others. The investigation was based on five student texts that were collected at an upper secondary school in the Swedish province of Värmland. The texts were sent to five native speaker evaluators in Britain and the United States of America. The errors represented were categorized as followed: substance, grammar, word choice, transfer errors and other errors.The results indicate that errors concerning substance, word choice, other errors and grammar were not considered grave. Concerning the grammatical errors, there were only a small number of cases that were considered grave. Therefore, the conclusion was drawn that grammatical errors do not affect the intelligibility of any of the five texts. However, the results from the investigation show that transfer errors, i.e. when the writer has transferred characteristics from the first language to the target language, were considered affecting the intelligibility to a larger extent than errors belonging to the other categories.</p>

In Sweden, about 10% of the adult population experienceshearing problems that cause them difficulties in everydaycommunication, and approximately 60 000 people are providedwith hearing aids each year. Despite the fact that modernhearing aids can facilitate speech communication in a widerange of listening environments, many hearing-aid users aredissatisfied with their hearing aids. It is likely that theclinical methods used for individual fitting of the hearingaids are not optimal. The current study investigates prescriptive methods fornonlinear, wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) hearinginstruments. The goal is to draw general conclusions about thepreferences of hearing aid users. Therefore, the prescriptionsare evaluated using well-established models of loudness andspeech intelligibility. Current methods differed considerably in prescribed gain.Evaluations in a laboratory test, with 20 hearing-impairedlisteners, showed that these differences led to largedifferences in perceived and calculated loudness, but only tominor differences in measured and predicted speech recognitionscores. The difference in loudness was explored in a studywhere 21 first-time hearing-aid users compared twoprescriptions. One method led to normal and the other toless-than-normal overall calculated loudness (according to theloudness model of Moore and Glasberg (1997)). The prescriptionthat led to less-than-normal overall loudness was clearlypreferred in field and in laboratory tests. Preferred overall loudness was then quantified.Hearing-impaired participants with mild to moderate hearingloss preferred considerably less-than-normal overall calculatedloudness in both eld and laboratory tests. There were nosignificant differences between inexperienced and experiencedhearing aid users. Normal-hearing participants, on the otherhand, preferred close-to-normal overall calculated loudness. Inaddition, a potential problem with the loudness model wasencountered: despite the fact that the hearing-impairedlisteners were provided with less than normal overallcalculated loudness, they rated loudness higher than thenormal-hearing listeners. The results refute the most commonly adopted rationale forprescriptive methods for WDRC hearing aids - that overallloudness should be restored to normal. Hearing-impairedlisteners with mild to moderate hearing loss preferredconsiderably less than normal overall loudness. This should betaken into account when deriving new prescriptive methods, andwhen providing clients with hearing aids. Key words:hearing impairment, hearing aid, nonlinear,WDRC, hearing aid experience, prescription, loudness, loudnessmodel, speech intelligibility, preference.

This thesis presents work in the area of computer-animatedtalking heads. A system for multimodal speech synthesis hasbeen developed, capable of generating audiovisual speechanimations from arbitrary text, using parametrically controlled3D models of the face and head. A speech-specific directparameterisation of the movement of the visible articulators(lips, tongue and jaw) is suggested, along with a flexiblescheme for parameterising facial surface deformations based onwell-defined articulatory targets. To improve the realism and validity of facial and intra-oralspeech movements, measurements from real speakers have beenincorporated from several types of static and dynamic datasources. These include ultrasound measurements of tonguesurface shape, dynamic optical motion tracking of face pointsin 3D, as well as electromagnetic articulography (EMA)providing dynamic tongue movement data in 2D. Ultrasound dataare used to estimate target configurations for a complex tonguemodel for a number of sustained articulations. Simultaneousoptical and electromagnetic measurements are performed and thedata are used to resynthesise facial and intra-oralarticulation in the model. A robust resynthesis procedure,capable of animating facial geometries that differ in shapefrom the measured subject, is described. To drive articulation from symbolic (phonetic) input, forexample in the context of a text-to-speech system, bothrule-based and data-driven articulatory control models havebeen developed. The rule-based model effectively handlesforward and backward coarticulation by targetunder-specification, while the data-driven model uses ANNs toestimate articulatory parameter trajectories, trained ontrajectories resynthesised from optical measurements. Thearticulatory control models are evaluated and compared againstother data-driven models trained on the same data. Experimentswith ANNs for driving the articulation of a talking headdirectly from acoustic speech input are also reported. A flexible strategy for generation of non-verbal facialgestures is presented. It is based on a gesture libraryorganised by communicative function, where each function hasmultiple alternative realisations. The gestures can be used tosignal e.g. turn-taking, back-channelling and prominence whenthe talking head is employed as output channel in a spokendialogue system. A device independent XML-based formalism fornon-verbal and verbal output in multimodal dialogue systems isproposed, and it is described how the output specification isinterpreted in the context of a talking head and converted intofacial animation using the gesture library. Through a series of audiovisual perceptual experiments withnoise-degraded audio, it is demonstrated that the animatedtalking head provides significantly increased intelligibilityover the audio-only case, in some cases not significantly belowthat provided by a natural face. Finally, several projects and applications are presented,where the described talking head technology has beensuccessfully employed. Four different multimodal spokendialogue systems are outlined, and the role of the talkingheads in each of the systems is discussed. A telecommunicationapplication where the talking head functions as an aid forhearing-impaired users is also described, as well as a speechtraining application where talking heads and languagetechnology are used with the purpose of improving speechproduction in profoundly deaf children. / QC 20100506

Hospital noise has been an area of concern for medical professionals and researchers for the last century. Researchers have attempted to characterize the soundscape of hospital wards and have made some preliminary links between noise and human outcomes. In the past, most of the research has used traditional acoustic metrics. These traditional metrics, such as average sound level, are readily measured using sound level meters and have been the primary results reported in previous studies. However, it has been shown that these traditional metrics may be insufficient in fully characterizing the wards. The two studies presented here use traditional metrics and nontraditional metrics to define the soundscape of hospital wards. The uncovered links, between both sound level metrics and psychoacoustic metrics and patient physiological measurements, are discussed. Correlations and risk ratios demonstrate the presence and the strength of these relationships. These results demonstrate the relationships between hospital acoustics and patient physiological arousal. Additionally, the effects of adding absorption in a hospital ward are presented. Sound level, sound power, reverberation time and other acoustic metrics are directly affected. The speech intelligibility in these wards is evaluated in order to highlight the temporal nature of speech intelligibility. With both studies combined, both traditional and nontraditional acoustic measures are shown to have statistically significant relationships to both patient and staff outcomes.

Förståelighet innebär hur väl lyssnaren förstår vad talaren menar (Hartelius &amp; Lohmander, 2008). Barn med språkstörning har ofta en nedsatt förståelighet (Nettelbladt, 2007). Föreliggande studie syftar till att undersöka huruvida det föreligger någon skillnad mellan jämnåriga barns och vuxnas förståelse av ett svårförståeligt barn med språkstörning. Icke-familjära lyssnare genomförde lyssnarbedömningar i form av ordidentifiering. Lyssnarna bestod av tio vuxna (22-67 år) samt elva förskolebarn (4;1-5;6 år). Materialet de bedömde utgjordes av 23 ord, yttrade av en pojke (4;9 år) med diagnosen generell språkförsening (F80.2B). Materialet härrörde från spontantal och benämning av bilder från testet ”OrdRacet” (Eklund, 1996). De vuxna bedöarna fick äenskatta, på en skala från ett till fem, hur säkra de var i sin bedömning. Barnen uppfattade i genomsnitt 2,0±0,9 (8,7 %) ord korrekt och de vuxna 3,7±1,2 (16 %) ord korrekt. Denna skillnad var signifikant, p=.004. Skattning av säkerhet i bedömning för vuxna lyssnare gav ett genomsnittligt värde på 2,5±0,9. Studiens resultat visade att barn med språkstörning kan ha stora svårigheter att göra sig förstådda, särskilt bland jämnåriga barn. Därför är det av yttersta vikt att logopedisk intervention har målsättningen att förbättra barnens förståelighet. / The definition of intelligibility is how well listeners understand what speakers intend to say (Hartelius &amp; Lohmander, 2008). Children with language impairment often have a reduced intelligibility (Nettelbladt, 2007). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether there is any difference between peers and adults in the understanding of an unintelligible child. 21 non-familiar listeners, ten adults (22-67 years) and eleven preschool children (4;1-5;6 years), carried out intelligibility assessments in terms of word recognition. The material consisted of 23 words uttered by a boy (4;9 years) diagnosed with language impairment, with both expressive and receptive difficulties. The material was derived from spontaneous speech and picture naming from the test "OrdRacet" (Eklund, 1996). The adult listeners were asked to rate their degree of confidence in judgement, on a five point scale. The children recognized at average 2.0±0.9 (8.7%) words correct and the adults 3.7±1.2 (16 %) words correct. This difference was statistically significant, p=.004. The adults’ listenerassessment of how sure they were in their word recognition gave a mean value of 2.5±0.9. The results indicated that children with language impairment may have great difficulties making themselves understood especially among peers. It is therefore important that intervention targets the intelligibility of their speech.

<p>In Sweden, about 10% of the adult population experienceshearing problems that cause them difficulties in everydaycommunication, and approximately 60 000 people are providedwith hearing aids each year. Despite the fact that modernhearing aids can facilitate speech communication in a widerange of listening environments, many hearing-aid users aredissatisfied with their hearing aids. It is likely that theclinical methods used for individual fitting of the hearingaids are not optimal.</p><p>The current study investigates prescriptive methods fornonlinear, wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) hearinginstruments. The goal is to draw general conclusions about thepreferences of hearing aid users. Therefore, the prescriptionsare evaluated using well-established models of loudness andspeech intelligibility.</p><p>Current methods differed considerably in prescribed gain.Evaluations in a laboratory test, with 20 hearing-impairedlisteners, showed that these differences led to largedifferences in perceived and calculated loudness, but only tominor differences in measured and predicted speech recognitionscores. The difference in loudness was explored in a studywhere 21 first-time hearing-aid users compared twoprescriptions. One method led to normal and the other toless-than-normal overall calculated loudness (according to theloudness model of Moore and Glasberg (1997)). The prescriptionthat led to less-than-normal overall loudness was clearlypreferred in field and in laboratory tests.</p><p>Preferred overall loudness was then quantified.Hearing-impaired participants with mild to moderate hearingloss preferred considerably less-than-normal overall calculatedloudness in both eld and laboratory tests. There were nosignificant differences between inexperienced and experiencedhearing aid users. Normal-hearing participants, on the otherhand, preferred close-to-normal overall calculated loudness. Inaddition, a potential problem with the loudness model wasencountered: despite the fact that the hearing-impairedlisteners were provided with less than normal overallcalculated loudness, they rated loudness higher than thenormal-hearing listeners.</p><p>The results refute the most commonly adopted rationale forprescriptive methods for WDRC hearing aids - that overallloudness should be restored to normal. Hearing-impairedlisteners with mild to moderate hearing loss preferredconsiderably less than normal overall loudness. This should betaken into account when deriving new prescriptive methods, andwhen providing clients with hearing aids.</p><p><b>Key words:</b>hearing impairment, hearing aid, nonlinear,WDRC, hearing aid experience, prescription, loudness, loudnessmodel, speech intelligibility, preference.</p>

Relative timing ratios are a useful measure for determining the temporal regularities of speech. The timing intervals that make up these ratios are thought to be important when creating the motor plan for an utterance (Weismer & Fennell, 1985). In fact, these ratios have been shown to be remarkably stable, even when speakers deliberately increase their rate (Tuller & Kelso, 1984; Weismer & Fennell, 1985). The constancy of these ratios also has been demonstrated in speakers with known speech timing disturbances, like the dysarthrias associated with Parkinson's and Huntington's disease (Goberman & McMillan; Ludlow, Connor, & Bassich, 1987; Weismer & Fennell, 1985), apraxia (Weismer & Fennell, 1985), and stuttering (Prosek, Montgomery, & Walden, 1988). However, a slowed rate of speech has been noted to induce variability in relative timing (Clark, 1995). The current investigation was designed to further investigate the impact of a slow rate on relative timing, as well as the impact of a different type of dysarthria on the production of these ratios. Eleven participants with MS and ten healthy controls participated. After screening the participants with MS for cognitive abilities and degree of dysathria, they produced four sentences at three different rates of speech: conversational, fast, and slow. Age-matched controls only provided the rate-controlled sentences. Relative timing ratios were extracted and an analysis of variance was conducted for each sentence to note the effects of speech rate, ratio type, and speaker condition on relative timing. The results revealed that relative timing was not constant in the slow rate for any of the participants. The noted variability in slow speech was attributed to vowel characteristics and sentence length. Finally, people with MS demonstrated larger relative timing ratios than their healthy peers when producing lengthier or motorically complex sentences. Consistent with previous research (Clark, 1995), these results indicated that relative timing ratios were not constant when rate was slowed. Hence, use of a reduced rate may have triggered the critical change required to alter relative timing. This difference may also correspond to a topological shift in the cortical planning of the utterance. These findings provide support for the use of slowed speech in the treatment of dysarthria and other speech timing disorders. It may be that slowed speech allows the speaker to access a motor plan better suited to his impaired muscular system.