Acoustic Predictors of Ease of Understanding in Spanish Speakers With Dysarthria Associated With Parkinson's Disease.
Type of content
Journal Article
UC permalink
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Publisher
American Speech Language Hearing Association
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
eng
Date
2022
Authors
Moya-Galé, Gemma
Wisler, Alan A
Walsh, Stephen J.
McAuliffe, Megan
Levy ES
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine selected baseline acoustic features of hypokinetic dysarthria in Spanish speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD) and identify potential acoustic predictors of ease of understanding in Spanish.Method
Seventeen Spanish-speaking individuals with mild-to-moderate hypokinetic dysarthria secondary to PD and eight healthy controls were recorded reading a translation of the Rainbow Passage. Acoustic measures of vowel space area, as indicated by the formant centralization ratio (FCR), envelope modulation spectra (EMS), and articulation rate were derived from the speech samples. Additionally, 15 healthy adults rated ease of understanding of the recordings on a visual analogue scale. A multiple linear regression model was implemented to investigate the predictive value of the selected acoustic parameters on ease of understanding.Results
Listeners' ease of understanding was significantly lower for speakers with dysarthria than for healthy controls. The FCR, EMS from the first 10 s of the reading passage, and the difference in EMS between the end and the beginning sections of the passage differed significantly between the two groups of speakers. Findings indicated that 67.7% of the variability in ease of understanding was explained by the predictive model, suggesting a moderately strong relationship between the acoustic and perceptual domains.Conclusions
Measures of envelope modulation spectra were found to be highly significant model predictors of ease of understanding of Spanish-speaking individuals with hypokinetic dysarthria associated with PD. Articulation rate was also found to be important (albeit to a lesser degree) in the predictive model. The formant centralization ratio should be further examined with a larger sample size and more severe dysarthria to determine its efficacy in predicting ease of understanding.Description
Citation
Moya-Galé G, Wisler AA, Walsh SJ, McAuliffe MJ, Levy ES (2022). Acoustic Predictors of Ease of Understanding in Spanish Speakers With Dysarthria Associated With Parkinson's Disease.. Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR. 1-14.
Keywords
Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
42 - Health sciences::4201 - Allied health and rehabilitation science::420110 - Speech pathology
47 - Language, communication and culture::4704 - Linguistics::470410 - Phonetics and speech science
47 - Language, communication and culture::4704 - Linguistics::470410 - Phonetics and speech science
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