Effect of the number of presentations on listener transcriptions and reliability in the assessment of speech intelligibility in children

Lagerberg, Tove B.; Johnels, Jakob Åsberg; Hartelius, Lena; Persson, Christina

doi:10.1111/1460-6984.12149

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Lagerberg et al . (2015) found that intelligibility scores of children with speech difficulties, as measured by orthographic transcription, increased as the number of presentations of the sentence stimuli increased from one to three times. However, the frequency of listeners hearing the sentences once versus twice was not recorded.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intelligibility in Down syndrome: Effect of measurement method and listener experience

O’Leary

Lee

O’Toole

et al. 2021

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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Background: Speech intelligibility is a global indicator of the severity of a speech problem. It is a measure that has been used frequently in research and clinical assessment of speech. Previous studies have shown that factors, such as measurement method and listener experience, can influence speech intelligibility scores. However, these factors of speech intelligibility assessment have not yet been investigated in people with Down syndrome (DS). Aims: To compare the speech intelligibility scores in speakers with DS measured using two methods: orthographic transcription and visual analogue scale (VAS), by two groups of listeners, experienced listeners and naïve listeners. Also, to examine the relationship across the four sets of speech intelligibility scores by means of correlational analysis.Methods & Procedures: A total of 30 adolescents and adults with DS read or repeated 12 sentences from a standardized test of intelligibility for adults with dysarthria. Each sentence was saved as a separate sound file and the 360 sentences were divided to form eight sets of stimuli. A total of 32 adults (16 experienced and 16 naïve) served as listeners of speech intelligibility. Each listener heard a single set of sentences and independently estimated the level of intelligibility for each sentence using a VAS in one task and wrote down the words perceived (i.e., orthographic transcription) in another task. The order of the two tasks was counterbalanced across listeners and the tasks were completed at least 1 week apart.Outcomes & Results: Repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), confirmed by mixed-methods analysis, showed that the scores obtained using orthographic transcription were significantly higher than those obtained using VAS; and the experienced listeners' scores were significantly higher than the naïve listeners' scores. Spearman rank correlation analysis showed that the four sets of scores across all conditions were strongly positively correlated with each other. Conclusions & Implications: Listeners, both experienced and naïve, may udge speech in DS differently when using orthographic transcription versus VAS as the method of measurement. In addition, experienced listeners can judge speech intelligibility differently compared with listeners who are less exposed to unclear speech, which may not represent 'real-world' functional communicative ability. Speech and language therapists should be aware of the effect of these factors when measuring intelligibility scores and direct comparison of scores obtained using different procedures and by different groups of listeners is not recommended.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The listeners did not know the target. Based on Lagerberg et al (2015), the listeners were allowed to listen to each sentence twice before moving on to the next item. Other previous studies that recruited listeners to judge speech intelligibility also allowed two repetitions of speech stimuli (e.g., Yorkston and Beukelman 1981).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intelligibility in Down syndrome: Effect of measurement method and listener experience

O’Leary

Lee

O’Toole

et al. 2021

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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“…With regard to repeated sentences, we found that 17% of the material in this study was listened to at least twice despite instructions that discouraged repeated listening. Since speech intelligibility score has been shown to increase with the number of repetitions (Lagerberg et al, 2015), there is a possibility that speech intelligibility was overestimated in some cases. However, and importantly, there were no indications that these extra repetitions had any systematic effect on the results, on the whole, seeing that the proportion of repeated sentences were comparable across stimulation conditions.…”

Section: Critique Of the Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Deep Brain Stimulation on Speech Intelligibility in Persons With Essential Tremor

Sandström

Blomstedt

Karlsson

et al. 2020

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate how deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the caudal zona incerta (cZi) affects speech intelligibility in persons with essential tremor. Method Thirty-five participants were evaluated: off stimulation, on chronic stimulation optimized to alleviate tremor, and during unilateral stimulation at increasing amplitude levels. At each stimulation condition, the participants read 10 unique nonsense sentences from the Swedish Test of Intelligibility. Two listeners, blinded to stimulation condition, transcribed all recorded sentences orthographically in a randomized procedure. A mean speech intelligibility score for each patient and stimulation condition was computed, and comparisons were made between scores off and on stimulation. Results Chronic cZi-DBS had no significant effect on speech intelligibility, and there was no difference in outcome between bilateral and unilateral treatments. During unilateral stimulation at increasing amplitudes, nine participants demonstrated deteriorating speech intelligibility. These nine participants were on average older and had more superior contacts activated during the evaluation compared with the participants without deterioration. Conclusions Chronic cZi-DBS, optimized for tremor suppression, does not generally affect speech intelligibility in persons with essential tremor. Furthermore, speech intelligibility may be preserved in many individuals, even when stimulated at high amplitudes. Adverse effects of high-amplitude unilateral stimulation observed in this study were associated with stimulation originating from a more superior location, as well as with the participants' age. These results, highlighting age and stimulation location as contributing to speech intelligibility outcomes, were, however, based on a limited number of individuals experiencing adverse effects with high-amplitude stimulation and should, therefore, be interpreted with caution.

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“…The most common measurement for assessing intelligibility is to transcribe speech samples orthographically. The reliability of the transcription of spontaneous speech improves with the number of times the transcribers listen to the utterances (Lagerberg et al, 2015).…”

Section: Intelligibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing the Informativeness of Single-Word Samples and Connected Speech Samples in Assessing Speech Sound Disorders

Yeh

Liu²

2021

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are faced with the challenge of quickly and accurately identifying children who present with speech sound disorders (SSD) compared to typically developing (TD) children. The goal of this study was to compare the clinical relevance of two speech sampling methods (single-word vs. connected speech samples) in how sensitive they are in detecting atypical speech sound development in children, and to know whether the information obtained from single-word samples is representative enough of children's overall speech sound performance. Method We compared the speech sound performance of 37 preschool children with SSD ( M age = 4;11 years) and 37 age-sex-matched typically developing children ( M age = 5;0 years) by eliciting their speech in two ways: (a) a picture-naming task to elicit single words, and (b) a story-retelling task to elicit connected speech. Four speech measures were compared across sample type (single words vs. connected speech) and across groups (SSD vs. TD): intelligibility, speech accuracy, phonemic inventory, and phonological patterns. Results Interaction effects were found between sample type and group on several speech sound performance measures. Single-word speech samples were found to differentiate the SSD group from the TD group, and were more sensitive than connected speech samples across various measures. The effect size of single-word samples was consistently higher than connected speech samples for three measures: intelligibility, speech accuracy, and phonemic inventory. The gap in sample type informativeness may be attributed to salience and avoidance effects, given that children tend to avoid producing unfamiliar phonemes in connected speech. The number of phonological patterns produced was the only measure that revealed no gap between two sampling types for both groups. Conclusions On measures of intelligibility, speech accuracy, and phonemic inventory, obtaining a single-word sample proved to be a more informative method of differentiating children with SSD from TD children than connected speech samples. This finding may guide SLPs in their choice of sampling type when they are under time pressure. We discuss how children's performance on the connected speech sample may be biased by salience and avoidance effects and/or task design, and may, therefore, not necessarily reveal a poorer performance than single-word samples, particularly in intelligibility, speech accuracy, and the number of phonological patterns, if these task limitations are circumvented. Our findings show that the performance gap, typically observed between the two sampling types, largely depends on which performance measures are evaluated with the speech sample. Our study is the first to address sampling type differences in SSD versus TD children and has significant clinical implications for SLPs looking for sampling types and measures that reliably identify SSD in preschool-aged children.

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Effect of the number of presentations on listener transcriptions and reliability in the assessment of speech intelligibility in children

Abstract: Information about the number of times an utterance is presented to the listener is important and should therefore always be included in reports of research involving intelligibility assessment. There is a need for further research and discussion on listener abilities and strategies.

Cited by 7 publications

References 42 publications

Intelligibility in Down syndrome: Effect of measurement method and listener experience

Intelligibility in Down syndrome: Effect of measurement method and listener experience

The Effects of Deep Brain Stimulation on Speech Intelligibility in Persons With Essential Tremor

Comparing the Informativeness of Single-Word Samples and Connected Speech Samples in Assessing Speech Sound Disorders

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