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PubMedDate not supplied

Speech production in Parkinson's disease: II. Acoustic and electropalatographic investigation of sentence, word and segment durations.

Previous investigations employing electropalatography (EPG) have identified articulatory timing deficits in individuals with acquired dysarthria. However, this technology is yet to be applied to the articulatory timing disturbance present in Parkinson's disease (PD). As a result, the current investigation aimed to use EPG to comprehensively examine the temporal aspects of articulation in a group of nine individuals with PD at sentence, word and segment level. This investigation followed on from a prior study (McAuliffe, Ward and Murdoch) and similarly, aimed to compare the results of the participants with PD to a group of aged (n = 7) and young controls (n = 8) to determine if ageing contributed to any articulatory timing deficits observed. Participants were required to read aloud the phrase "I saw a _ today" with the EPG palate in-situ. Target words included the consonants /l/, /s/ and /t/ in initial position in both the /i/ and /a/ vowel environments. Perceptual investigation of speech rate was conducted in addition to objective measurement of sentence, word and segment duration. Segment durations included the total segment length and duration of the approach, closure/constriction and release phases of EPG consonant production. Results of the present study revealed impaired speech rate, perceptually, in the group with PD. However, this was not confirmed objectively. Electropalatographic investigation of segment durations indicated that, in general, the group with PD demonstrated segment durations consistent with the control groups. Only one significant difference was noted, with the group with PD exhibiting significantly increased duration of the release phase for /la/ when compared to both the control groups. It is, therefore, possible that EPG failed to detect lingual movement impairment as it does not measure the complete tongue movement towards and away from the hard palate. Furthermore, the contribution of individual variation to the present findings should not be overlooked.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Treatment of motor aprosodia with pitch biofeedback and expression modelling.

In motor aprosodia, imitation and production of emotional prosody and facial gestures are compromised. Despite the frequency with which aprosodia occurs after brain damage, and its potential to cause social and vocational disability, no formal treatments are available for this disorder. A case of motor aprosodia treated with voice pitch biofeedback and modelling of affective communication is presented. Utilizing the patient as her own control, the affective communication treatment was compared to traditional rehabilitation therapy. The results obtained suggest that affective communication treatment has potential in improving affective communication in brain-injured patients. Also notable was the fact that the improvements in emotional expression were stable over a 2-month follow-up period, and could not be attributed to recovery of function as a result of time passage, the effect of traditional rehabilitation, the effect of the extra attention paid to the patient, or examiner bias.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Planning of syllables in children with developmental apraxia of speech.

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether children with developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) show a deficit in planning syllables in speech production. Six children with DAS and six normally speaking (NS) children produced high- and low-frequency of occurrence syllable utterances, in which the syllable structure was systematically manipulated in an otherwise unchanging phoneme sequence. Anticipatory coarticulation, using second formant trajectories, and durational structure were analysed. The results showed stronger coarticulation in the children with DAS when compared to the normally speaking children. but in contrast to our expectations, in neither group was a systematic effect of syllable structure on the second format trajectory found. Effects of syllable structure did emerge for durational structure in that durational adjustments were found in the segments of the second syllable. These adjustments were less systematic in children with DAS when compared to normally speaking children. Furthermore, at the prosodic level, normally speaking children showed metrical contrasts that were not realized by the children with DAS. The latter results are interpreted as evidence for a problem in the planning of syllables in speech production of children with DAS, in particular concerning prosodic aspects, which is discussed in relation to the automation of speech production.

Apraxias↗
PubMed2002

Acoustic phenotypes for speech-genetics studies: toward an acoustic marker for residual /s/ distortions.

Findings in a prior study series indicate that acoustic markers may have the requisite sensitivity and specificity to discriminate speakers with histories of several types of speech disorders, one of which is posited to be genetically inherited. The present study in this series compares acoustic data from three groups of adolescent speakers. Group 1 speakers had residual dentalized /s/ distortions in conversational speech and histories of significant age-inappropriate deletion and substitution errors. Group 2 speakers also had residual dentalized /s/ distortions in conversational speech, but their speech histories were limited to dentalized distortions of /s/ and other fricatives/affricates. Group 3 speakers had typical speech on assessment and no histories of speech errors. Owing to the limited number of perceptually dentalized /s/ tokens produced by Groups 1 and 2 speakers in a phrase-level speech task, acoustic analyses were completed on /s/ tokens transcribed as correct for speakers in all groups. Moments analyses of /s/ spectra in three words with /s/-initial clusters yielded statistically significant differences and consistent trends for mean spectral frequency and spectral variance for Group 1 compared with Group 2 speakers. These findings for perceptually normal /s/ tokens are interpreted as additional support for the potential of acoustic markers to discriminate speakers' speech-error histories. The discussion considers possible developmental and normalization correlates of the acoustic findings for speakers with each of the two types of speech-error histories studied in this paper.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Acoustic phonetics in a clinical setting: a case study of /r/-distortion therapy with surgical intervention.

Acoustic measures are used to document the speech of a 6-year-old child with persistent /r/-distortion through several treatment interventions. The child originally presented a complex of speech disorders and was treated by a speech-language pathologist using phonological process techniques. The procedures successfully corrected most of his speech problems, although /r/ remained severely distorted. The primary acoustic manifestation of this distortion was a high third formant. Surgical correction of a banded lingual frenulum, along with adenoton-sillectomy indicated for sleep apnea, is shown to have had a small effect in lowering the third formant. A dramatic change was seen on reintroduction of therapy, when an extreme drop in third formant frequencies for /r/ was observed. The acoustic data are interpreted using speaker-internal controls derived from a dialect-appropriate adult model.

Articulation Disorders↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Bridging the digital divide: aspects of computerized data collection and analysis for language professionals.

Recent technological developments have made inexpensive digital speech recording and analysis available to any researcher interested in using them. This paper explores the benefits of working with digital sound files, it provides the reader with system recommendations, explains how to digitize audio recordings, and includes suggestions for selected uses.

Biophysical Phenomena↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Prosodic disturbance in aphasia: speech timing versus intonation production.

Temporal control has often been suspected to be a critical factor in intonation production. In particular, disturbance in the production of fundamental frequency (F0) associated with intonation in patients with aphasia has been attributed to a primary underlying deficit in speech timing. The present study examined the speech timing abilities of two groups of patients with fluent and nonfluent aphasia who were found in a companion study to have relatively normal intonation production ability. Results indicated severe temporal control abnormalities for the patients with nonfluent aphasia. The fluent aphasic patients performed at comparable levels with the normal subjects, although in absolute terms their durations were also generally longer than normal. These findings do not support the view that intonation production depends critically on speech timing, and that its disturbance in aphasia is due to underlying temporal control deficit.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Alternating motion rate as an index of speech motor disorder in traumatic brain injury.

The task of syllable alternating motion rate (AMR) (also called diadochokinesis) is suitable for examining speech disorders of varying degrees of severity and in individuals with varying levels of linguistic and cognitive ability. However, very limited information on this task has been published for subjects with traumatic brain injury (TBI). This study is a quantitative and qualitative acoustic analysis of AMR in seven subjects with TBI. The primary goal was to use acoustic analyses to assess speech motor control disturbances for the group as a whole and for individual patients. Quantitative analyses included measures of syllable rate, syllable and intersyllable gap durations, energy maxima, and voice onset time (VOT). Qualitative analyses included classification of features evident in spectrograms and waveforms to provide a more detailed description. The TBI group had (1) a slowed syllable rate due mostly to lengthened syllables and, to a lesser degree, lengthened intersyllable gaps, (2) highly correlated syllable rates between AMR and conversation, (3) temporal and energy maxima irregularities within repetition sequences, (4) normal median VOT values but with large variation, and (5) a number of speech production abnormalities revealed by qualitative analysis, including explosive speech quality, breathy voice quality, phonatory instability, multiple or missing stop bursts, continuous voicing, and spirantization. The relationships between these findings and TBI speakers' neurological status and dysarthria types are also discussed. It was concluded that acoustic analyses of the AMR task provides specific information on motor speech limitations in individuals with TBI.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Toward the development of an objective index of dysphonia severity: a four-factor acoustic model.

During assessment and management of individuals with voice disorders, clinicians routinely attempt to describe or quantify the severity of a patient's dysphonia. This investigation used acoustic measures derived from sustained vowel samples to predict dysphonia severity (as determined by auditory-perceptual ratings), for a diverse set of voice samples obtained from 134 adult females, with and without voice disorders. Stepwise multiple regression analysis on all voice samples, followed by randomized and repeated cross-validation (random selection of 75% of the original 134 voice sample corpus; 100 iterations) indicated that a four-variable model comprised of time and spectral-based acoustic measures was able to strongly predict perceived severity of dysphonia (mean R = .880; mean R(2) = .775). A cepstral-based measure (CPP/EXP ratio) was determined to be the most significant contributor to the prediction of dysphonia severity, though it is clear that the addition of other acoustic measures (pitch sigma; shimmer (dB); and the Discrete Fourier Transformation ratio, a measure of low versus high frequency spectral energy) add substantially to the accurate prediction of severity. The results are interpreted and discussed with respect to the key acoustic characteristics that contributed to the prediction of severity, the value of identifying a subset of time and spectral-based acoustic measures which appear sensitive to a perceptually diverse set of voices, and the possible use of acoustic models in guiding auditory-perceptual ratings.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Clinical use of AEVP- and AERP-measures in childhood speech disorders.

It has long been recognized that from the first months of life auditory perception plays a crucial role in speech and language development. Only in recent years, however, is the precise mechanism of auditory development and its interaction with the acquisition of speech and language beginning to be systematically revealed. This paper presents the results of a series of studies exploring the relevance of electrophysiological measurements for the objective diagnosis of children with language and speech disorders. In the first, retrospective, study, an inventory was made of clinical neurological, neuropsychological, logopedic and neurophysiological findings obtained from 43 children referred to the Paediatric Neurology Centre for the diagnosis of their speech and language deficits. Neurophysiological abnormalities were found in 95% of these children, among these deviant auditory evoked potentials (AEVPs). The second study demonstrated developmental trends in the waveform of the cortical AEVPs up to age 6 years; the implications for longitudinal studies are discussed. Preliminary results from the third study show emerging differences in auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) for young children who are at risk for developmental dyslexia based on their family history. These findings underscore the clinical usefulness of neurophysiological measures for the diagnosis of speech-language disorders. Clinical protocols are further developed and tested.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Automatic speech recognition and training for severely dysarthric users of assistive technology: the STARDUST project.

The STARDUST project developed robust computer speech recognizers for use by eight people with severe dysarthria and concomitant physical disability to access assistive technologies. Independent computer speech recognizers trained with normal speech are of limited functional use by those with severe dysarthria due to limited and inconsistent proximity to "normal" articulatory patterns. Severe dysarthric output may also be characterized by a small mass of distinguishable phonetic tokens making the acoustic differentiation of target words difficult. Speaker dependent computer speech recognition using Hidden Markov Models was achieved by the identification of robust phonetic elements within the individual speaker output patterns. A new system of speech training using computer generated visual and auditory feedback reduced the inconsistent production of key phonetic tokens over time.

Artificial Intelligence↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Abnormal patterns of tongue-palate contact in the speech of individuals with cleft palate.

Individuals with cleft palate, even those with adequate velopharyngeal function, are at high risk for disordered lingual articulation. This article attempts to summarize current knowledge of abnormal tongue-palate contact patterns derived from electropalatographic (EPG) data in speakers with cleft palate. These data, which have been reported in 23 articles published over the past 20 years, have added significantly to our knowledge about cleft palate speech. Eight abnormal patterns of tongue-palate contact are described and illustrated with data from children and adults with repaired cleft palate. The paper also discusses some of the problems in interpreting EPG data from speakers with abnormal craniofacial anatomy and emphasizes the importance of quantifying relevant aspects of tongue-palate contact data. Areas of research requiring further investigation are outlined.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Vocal development of infants with very low birth weight.

This study describes the vocal development of infants born with very low birth weights (VLBW). Samples of vocalizations were recorded from three groups of infants when they were 8, 12 and 18 months of age: preterm VLBW infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), preterm VLBW infants without BPD, and healthy full-term infants. Infants with BPD produced significantly smaller canonical syllable ratios than the full-term infants throughout the period of study. Premature VLBW infants who did not suffer from BPD produced relatively little canonical babble at 8 months of age, but were performing within the range of the full-term infants at 18 months of age. At 18 months of age, the infants with BPD were reported to have significantly smaller expressive vocabulary sizes than the healthier preterm and full-term infants.

Articulation Disorders↗
PubMedDate not supplied

On the distinction between Norwegian [symbols: see text] from a phonetic perspective.

The present study uses electropalatography (EPG) and electromagnetic articulography (EMA) in the description of the articulation of the two East Norwegian fricatives [symbols: see text] in the speech of seven normal adult speakers. The motivation for studying these two phonemes is twofold: there is a merger between the places of articulation of these two fricatives in the speech of the young. A description of the articulation in the speech of mature speakers who have the distinction, may throw light on the mechanisms behind the merger. Furthermore, identifying possible articulatory variation between normal speakers is important in order to establish an articulatory base line for clinical work. Our investigation has shown considerable overlap between the phonetic realizations of the two phonemes, as well as substantial variation between speakers in their articulation. There is, however, a clear acoustic distinction between the two phonemes for all speakers, and the acoustic patterns between speakers are similar.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Speaker-specific kinematic properties of alveolar reductions in English and German.

A simultaneous EPG/EMA study of tongue gestures of five speakers was conducted to investigate the kinematic events accompanying alveolar stop reductions in the context of a velar plosive /k/ and in the context of a laryngeal fricative /h/ in two languages, English and German. No systematic language differences could be detected. Alveolar productions before a following /h/ showed only a marginal weakening of the formation of complete occlusion, while alveolar productions before a following /k/ showed a wide range of reductions, including instances of a complete deletion of the alveolar gesture. The extension of movement reduction varied between and within subjects. Importantly, while speakers were consistent with themselves, they employed different articulatory patterns with respect to the timing relationship between movement initiation, overall movement duration, peak velocity as well as closure duration. An attempt is made to relate the observed movement patterns to the dynamic factors of the speech mechanism.

Alveolar Process↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A guide to analysing tongue motion from ultrasound images.

This paper is meant to be an introduction to and general reference for ultrasound imaging for new and moderately experienced users of the instrument. The paper consists of eight sections. The first explains how ultrasound works, including beam properties, scan types and machine features. The second section discusses image quality, including the interpretation of anatomical features and artefacts seen in the image. The third section discusses the validity of the data collection procedures, including the effects of stabilizing the transducer and head position, and discusses some methods for stabilization. Section four discusses validation of the ultrasound and stabilization systems. The fifth section presents a sample recording set-up, supplemental information, and normalization strategies for sessions and subjects. In section six are methods of extracting contours from ultrasound images, displaying them, and analysing them. The seventh section considers the tracking of pellets on the tongue surface and the differences between tracking tissue points and continuous surfaces. The last section presents methods, challenges and results of 3D, computerized reconstruction of tongue surfaces. An outline of the paper can be found in Appendix I.

Biomechanical Phenomena↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Investigating prosodic ability in Williams syndrome.

This paper investigates whether people with Williams syndrome (WS) have prosodic impairments affecting their expression and comprehension of four main uses of intonation. Two adolescent males with WS were assessed using the PEPS-C battery, which considers prosodic abilities within a psycholinguistic framework, assessing prosodic form and function in both the input and output domains. The performances of the subjects with WS were compared with control data for age and language-comprehension matched children. The results revealed significant prosodic impairment affecting all areas of the profile. Crucially, however, different profiles of strengths and weaknesses were revealed for the two subjects. The results support the growing view that WS is a heterogeneous population in terms of linguistic abilities.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Repetition priming: Is music special?

Using short and long contexts, the present study investigated musical priming effects that are based on chord repetition and harmonic relatedness. A musical target (a chord) was preceded by either an identical prime or a different but harmonically related prime. In contrast to words, pictures, and environmental sounds, chord processing was not facilitated by repetition. Experiments 1 and 2 using single-chord primes showed either no significant difference between chord repetition and harmonic relatedness or facilitated processing for harmonically related targets. Experiment 3 using longer prime contexts showed that musical priming depended more on the musical function of the target in the preceding context than on target repetition. The effect of musical function was decreased, but not qualitatively changed, by chord repetition. The outcome of this study challenges predictions of sensory approaches and supports a cognitive approach of musical priming.

Association Learning↗