Perceptions of people with aphasia about supporting reading with text-to-speech technology: A convergent mixed methods study

Hux, Karen; Wallace, Sarah E.; Brown, Jessica; Knollman-Porter, Kelly

doi:10.1016/j.jcomdis.2021.106098

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Other reading strategies (e.g., highlighting, covering information) or text‐to‐speech‐technologies as explored in Hux et al. (2021) could be used additionally.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies with larger sample sizes are necessary to investigate strategy-specific effects as well as individual preconditions that may contribute to a successful use of specific reading strategies. Other reading strategies (e.g., highlighting, covering information) or textto-speech-technologies as explored in Hux et al (2021) could be used additionally.…”

Section: Selection Of Reading Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Efficacy of reading strategies on text‐level reading comprehension in people with post‐stroke chronic aphasia: A repeated measures study

Thumbeck,

Schmid,

Chesneau

et al. 2023

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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BackgroundPeople with aphasia (PWA) frequently experience difficulties in understanding longer written content such as paragraphs or books. Reading strategies are a promising approach to treat text‐level reading comprehension deficits in PWA. Nevertheless, empirical evidence for their efficacy remains rare.AimsThe primary objective of this study was to analyse the efficacy of a strategy‐based intervention on text‐level reading comprehension in PWA. Secondary objectives were to compare the effects of two strategy‐based intervention components and to explore potential moderator effects.Methods & ProceduresA protocol was published prior to data acquisition. In a repeated measures trial, 26 German participants with chronic, post‐stroke aphasia participated in a waiting period without aphasia treatment (control condition) followed by a strategy‐based intervention called ‘Strategiebasierte Textverständnis‐Therapie bei Aphasie’ (StraTexT, 14 face‐to‐face‐sessions, twice per week, 60 min each). Two strategy combinations, Intervention Micro targeting microstructure and Intervention Macro targeting macrostructure, were applied to newspaper and magazine articles. Participants were randomly allocated to two parallel groups that received these strategy combinations in interchanged sequences. Assessments were implemented before and after each period as well as 3 and 6 months after the intervention. The primary outcome measure was text‐level reading comprehension measured with the total score of a German version of the Test de Compréhension de Textes (TCT‐D). Secondary outcome measures addressed the self‐reported perception of reading abilities, reading activities and feelings about reading (German version of the Comprehensive Assessment of Reading in Aphasia CARA reading questionnaire) as well as selected cognitive functions.Outcomes & ResultsThe per‐protocol‐analysis included data from 22 participants. We found significant small improvements up to 6 months post‐intervention compared to pre‐intervention in the TCT‐D Total (d = 0.35–0.46) as well as medium to large improvements in the CARA questionnaire (d = 0.68–0.96). Up to 3 months after the intervention, treatment‐induced improvements in the TCT‐D Total were significantly larger than change without treatment during the control condition. There was no evidence of moderator effects. Furthermore, we found improvements in several cognitive functions.Conclusions & ImplicationsReading strategies can lead to long‐term improvements in text‐level reading comprehension and in self‐reported reading abilities, feelings about reading and reading activities in aphasia. In regular clinical settings, it seems reasonable to implement both Intervention Micro and Intervention Macro. It remains important to investigate participant characteristics that contribute to treatment success.WHAT THIS PAPER ADDSWhat is already known on the subject Systematic reviews and multiple case studies suggest that reading strategies are a promising approach to treat text‐level reading comprehension in aphasia. The efficacy of reading strategies has been demonstrated for different populations. However, to date no group study has evaluated the efficacy of reading strategies on text‐level reading comprehension in people with aphasia.What this study adds This study provides the first group‐level evidence about the efficacy of a systematic strategy‐based intervention in 22 people with post‐stroke chronic aphasia. During 14 treatment sessions, participants applied four reading strategies to newspaper and magazine articles within two intervention components called Intervention Micro and Intervention Macro (two strategies per intervention component). We found improvements in text‐level reading comprehension for at least 3 months post‐intervention, as well as effects on selected cognitive functions and self‐reported reading abilities, thoughts and feelings about reading and the ability to engage in reading activities.What are the clinical implications of this work? The strategies and materials evaluated in this study could be used in clinical practice with people with aphasia. In order to replicate treatment effects in clinical practice, we suggest applying the strategy combination with the same protocol features (e.g., frequency, duration, homework, product orientation) as in this study, implementing Intervention Micro and Intervention Macro sequentially in either order. As treatment response was not equal in all individuals, it seems important to investigate individual features that contribute to treatment success.

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“…Other reading strategies (e.g., highlighting, covering information) or text‐to‐speech‐technologies as explored in Hux et al. (2021) could be used additionally.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Selection Of Reading Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficacy of reading strategies on text‐level reading comprehension in people with post‐stroke chronic aphasia: A repeated measures study

Thumbeck,

Schmid,

Chesneau

et al. 2023

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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show abstract

“…The purpose of this technology is to make computers able to communicate and interact with everyday spoken language. The use of TTS today has been widely practiced by researchers, such as to recognize Vietnamese directly [3] or through a voice Bot [4], recognizing Japanese and English [1], the use of this TTS can also be used to conduct interviews [5], used in agriculture [6], and also helpful for people with aphasia [7]. In the configuration process, the words are split into syllables using Indonesian language rules with the aim that the resulting sound can be heard in the Indonesian language.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Text-to-speech on health monitoring bracelet for the visually impaired

Indrianto,

Abdurrasyid,

Susanti

et al. 2023

Bulletin EEI

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Text-to-speech (TTS) is a technology that converts text into sound using a phonetization system and is especially useful to be applied to blind aids who need information in the form of sound because of their limitations. To help the visually impaired know their health conditions where the visually impaired feel limited to going out during the pandemic. For this reason, it is necessary to make an aid that can read text-based data such as body temperature, heart rate per minute, and oxygen levels into a voice that can be heard by the blind, the method used in this study is finite state automata (FSA) which is used to split Indonesian words into words according to its syllable patterns and facilitate the pronunciation process which is included in the blind aids so that it is expected to help the visually impaired to be able to find out their health condition. In this study, the test was carried out using the confusion matrix method and the results obtained were 100% accurate, 99.71% accuracy of temperature sensor, 98% accuracy of heart rate, and 95% accuracy of oxygen saturation.

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“…Unlike Hux et al [6], the clinical experiment used in the current study collected the reaction times for each item and compared three different voices built with different technologies to investigate whether one voice is more suitable for PWA than the other voices. Another study investigating TTS systems in relation to PWA with acquired reading impairments is the one carried out by Hux et al [9], analysing participants' views of desired features, advantages, and downsides of TTS technology following one-on-one teaching and guided practice sessions. The results of the study highlighted that participants found (i) the possibility to select the preferred output voice, (ii) being able to tune the output speech rate, and (iii) text highlight matching the voice output to be crucial features of a TTS system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While these features could also be interesting for the healthy population, in the case of PWA and acquired reading impairments, being able to personalise the characteristics could be crucial for the use of the tool [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of TTS Systems Performance on Reaction Times in People with Aphasia

et al. 2021

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Text-to-speech (TTS) systems provide fundamental reading support for people with aphasia and reading difficulties. However, artificial voices are more difficult to process than natural voices. The current study is an extended analysis of the results of a clinical experiment investigating which, among three artificial voices and a digitised human voice, is more suitable for people with aphasia and reading impairments. Such results show that the voice synthesised with Ogmios TTS, a concatenative speech synthesis system, caused significantly slower reaction times than the other three voices used in the experiment. The present study explores whether and what voice quality metrics are linked to delayed reaction times. For this purpose, the voices were analysed using an automatic assessment of intelligibility, naturalness, and jitter and shimmer voice quality parameters. This analysis revealed that Ogmios TTS, in general, performed worse than the other voices in all parameters. These observations could explain the significantly delayed reaction times in people with aphasia and reading impairments when listening to Ogmios TTS and could open up consideration about which TTS to choose for compensative devices for these patients based on the voice analysis of these parameters.

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Perceptions of people with aphasia about supporting reading with text-to-speech technology: A convergent mixed methods study

Cited by 12 publications

References 31 publications

Efficacy of reading strategies on text‐level reading comprehension in people with post‐stroke chronic aphasia: A repeated measures study

Efficacy of reading strategies on text‐level reading comprehension in people with post‐stroke chronic aphasia: A repeated measures study

Text-to-speech on health monitoring bracelet for the visually impaired

Influence of TTS Systems Performance on Reaction Times in People with Aphasia

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