OBJECTIVE This study examined longitudinal change in speech intelligibility, vowel space, and word duration over 18 months among children with cerebral palsy (CP) who varied in the severity of their speech motor involvement. The study also examined relationships among variables at each time point. METHOD Twenty-two children with CP participated in the study (mean age = 50 months at the first ...

UNLABELLED The intelligibility of conversational speech produced by six children fitted with cochlear implants before age 3 years was measured longitudinally. Samples were obtained every 3 months during periods of 12-21 months. Intelligibility was measured using both an utterance-by-utterance approach and an approach to the sample as a whole. Statistically significant differences were observed ...

PURPOSE Speech acoustic characteristics of children with cerebral palsy (CP) were examined with a multiple speech subsystems approach; speech intelligibility was evaluated using a prediction model in which acoustic measures were selected to represent three speech subsystems. METHOD Nine acoustic variables reflecting different subsystems, and speech intelligibility, were measured in 22 childre...

BACKGROUND Changes to spoken communication are inevitable in Parkinson's disease (PD). It remains unclear what consequences changes have for intelligibility of speech. AIMS To establish the prevalence of impaired speech intelligibility in people with PD and the relationship of intelligibility decline to indicators of disease progression. METHODS 125 speakers with PD and age matched unaffect...

This report describes a method of speech modification to improve the intelligibility of speech. The spectral energy is reallocated by maintaining and emphasizing acoustical features important for speech perception. The method consists of three components: flattening of the spectral tilt, enhancement of the spectral contrast, and holding of the low-frequency region. The results of this speech in...

Speech utterances in a given language are known to be less intelligible to second-language (L2) listeners than to native listeners. This study is aimed at quantifying the reduction of speech intelligibility due to non-nativeness of the listener. Two types of experiments were carried out: Speech Reception Threshold (SRT) experiments for obtaining a quantitative measure of speech intelligibility,...

Exaggerated and redundant prosodic cue use has been noted among adults with dysarthria secondary to cerebral palsy (CP) (Patel, 2004; van Doorn & Sheard, 2001). A possible explanation may be that speakers heighten prosodic contrasts to increase intelligibility. The current work examined whether children with dysarthria due to CP also produce exaggerated prosodic contours and if so, how prosodic...

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to evaluate the long-term speech perception and speech intelligibility of congenitally and prelingually deaf children after cochlear implantation. It was a longitudinal study following 63 congenitally or prelingually deaf children up to 5 years after implantation. They each received a nucleus multichannel cochlear implant before they were 10 years old. METHODS Perce...