<i>Be Clear</i>: A New Intensive Speech Treatment for Adults With Nonprogressive Dysarthria

Park, Stacie; Theodoros, Deborah; Finch, Emma; Cardell, Elizabeth

doi:10.1044/2015_ajslp-14-0113

Cited by 67 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Targeting speech clarity has shown promise for increasing intelligibility in adults with dysarthria (e.g., Park et al . 2016). In cueing studies, when native speakers of American English increase movement amplitude in clear speech, the first formant (F1) range generally increases across vowels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of speech cues in French‐speaking children with dysarthria

Levy

Moya‐Galé

Chang

et al. 2020

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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Background: Articulatory excursion and vocal intensity are reduced in many children with dysarthria due to cerebral palsy (CP), contributing to the children's intelligibility deficits and negatively affecting their social participation. However, the effects of speech-treatment strategies for improving intelligibility in this population are understudied, especially for children who speak languages other than English. In a cueing study on English-speaking children with dysarthria, acoustic variables and intelligibility improved when the children were provided with cues aimed to increase articulatory excursion and vocal intensity. While French is among the top 20 most spoken languages in the world, dysarthria and its management in French-speaking children are virtually unexplored areas of research. Information gleaned from such research is critical for providing an evidence base on which to provide treatment. Aims: To examine acoustic and perceptual changes in the speech of French-speaking children with dysarthria, who are provided with speech cues targeting greater articulatory excursion (French translation of 'speak with your big mouth') and vocal intensity (French translation of 'speak with your strong voice'). This study investigated whether, in response to the cues, the children would make acoustic changes and listeners would perceive the children's speech as more intelligible. Methods & Procedures: Eleven children with dysarthria due to CP (six girls, five boys; ages 4;11-17;0 years; eight with spastic CP, three with dyskinetic CP) repeated pre-recorded speech stimuli across three speaking conditions (habitual, 'big mouth' and 'strong voice'). Stimuli were sentences and contrastive words in phrases. Acoustic analyses were conducted. A total of 66 Belgian-French listeners transcribed the children's utterances orthographically and rated their ease of understanding on a visual analogue scale at sentence and word levels.Outcomes & Results: Acoustic analyses revealed significantly longer duration in response to the big mouth cue at sentence level and in response to both the big mouth and strong voice cues at word level. Significantly higher vocal sound-pressure levels were found following both cues at sentence and word levels. Both cues elicited significantly higher first-formant vowel frequencies and listeners' greater ease-of-understanding ratings at word level. Increases in the percentage of words transcribed correctly and in sentence ease-of-understanding ratings, however, did not reach statistical significance. Considerable variability between children was observed. Conclusions & Implications: Speech cues targeting greater articulatory excursion and vocal intensity yield significant acoustic changes in French-speaking children with dysarthria. However, the changes may only aid listeners' ease of understanding at word level. The significant findings and great inter-speaker variability are generally consistent with studies on English-speaking children with dysarthria, although changes appear more constrained in ...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of speech cues in French‐speaking children with dysarthria

Levy

Moya‐Galé

Chang

et al. 2020

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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“…Investigating the underlying acoustic changes that accompany clear speech variants in speakers with PD is important for optimizing clear speech training programs (e.g., Park, Theodoros, Finch, & Cardell, 2014). Furthermore, improved understanding of the acoustic basis of dysarthria can inform therapy decisions (Duffy, 2013) as well as provide insight into a model of dysarthria (Duffy, 2005;Kain, Amano-Kusumoto, & Hosom, 2008;Mengistu & Rudzicz, 2011).…”

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confidence: 99%

Clear Speech Variants: An Acoustic Study in Parkinson's Disease

Lam

Tjaden

2016

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose The authors investigated how different variants of clear speech affect segmental and suprasegmental acoustic measures of speech in speakers with Parkinson's disease and a healthy control group. Method A total of 14 participants with Parkinson's disease and 14 control participants served as speakers. Each speaker produced 18 different sentences selected from the Sentence Intelligibility Test (Yorkston & Beukelman, 1996). All speakers produced stimuli in 4 speaking conditions (habitual, clear, overenunciate, and hearing impaired). Segmental acoustic measures included vowel space area and first moment (M1) coefficient difference measures for consonant pairs. Second formant slope of diphthongs and measures of vowel and fricative durations were also obtained. Suprasegmental measures included fundamental frequency, sound pressure level, and articulation rate. Results For the majority of adjustments, all variants of clear speech instruction differed from the habitual condition. The overenunciate condition elicited the greatest magnitude of change for segmental measures (vowel space area, vowel durations) and the slowest articulation rates. The hearing impaired condition elicited the greatest fricative durations and suprasegmental adjustments (fundamental frequency, sound pressure level). Conclusions Findings have implications for a model of speech production for healthy speakers as well as for speakers with dysarthria. Findings also suggest that particular clear speech instructions may target distinct speech subsystems.

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“…Tjaden et al (2014) observed that producing both clear and loud speech resulted in increased speech intelligibility relative to slow and habitual speech for speakers with multiple sclerosis or PD. Increased speech intelligibility has also been observed posttreatment following an intensive therapy using clear speech in speakers with nonprogressive dysarthria (Park, Theodoros, Finch, & Cardell, 2016).…”

Section: Global Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 93%