Speech-Language Pathologists' Use of Intelligibility Measures in Adults With Dysarthria

Gurevich, Naomi; Scamihorn, Sydney L

doi:10.1044/2017_ajslp-16-0112

Cited by 23 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Overall, our results show that currently available tools in French-speaking countries do not seem to meet the clinicians' expectations and needs. Similar to surveys in other linguistic communities [27,[45][46][47][48], our study thus emphasizes the need for new sensitive, standardized, reliable and comprehensive tools to assess speech disorders both at the analytical and at more functional levels. Interestingly, the identified perspectives are similar to those reported by Gurevich and Scamihorn in the USA: "There is support for the need to develop new, cost-effective, useful, efficient, and simple-to-use formal tools to objectively (sic) assess intelligibility (sic).…”

Section: Reliability and Reproducibilitysupporting

confidence: 71%

“…The preference for this "informal" assessment over standardized tools has been reported internationally in several other surveys [27,46,48,61]. Possible causes are the absence of standardized criteria to choose between assessment tools [61], lack of time and funding, dissatisfaction with existing tools, and poor ease of access [27,48]. Note that differences in the health care contexts exist between the French-speaking countries and might explain some of the results.…”

Section: Standardizationmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…Assessment batteries are only used in their entirety by one third of SLPs, while others only draw a few tests from them (thus sometimes overlooking some dimensions of the speech assessment). The preference for this "informal" assessment over standardized tools has been reported internationally in several other surveys [27,46,48,61]. Possible causes are the absence of standardized criteria to choose between assessment tools [61], lack of time and funding, dissatisfaction with existing tools, and poor ease of access [27,48].…”

Section: Standardizationmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…No hypothesis could thus be made on the expected number of responses. For comparison purpose, the sample sizes for other surveys targeting speech and language pathologists in the field of dysarthria were as follows: 296 in the USA [48], 80 in the Republic of Ireland [46], 146 [47] and 119 [45] in the UK, and 56 in Australia [27]. The only survey addressing SLPs working in the field of dysarthria in France targeted the north-western part of the country as well as Paris, and only obtained 20 responses [53].…”

Section: Recruitmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While surveys have been carried out in different countries and linguistic communities [27,[45][46][47][48], the current literature does not provide data on speech assessment practices in French-speaking countries. Therefore, by means of a survey for French-speaking SLPs/phoniatricians, a first aim of this study was to provide an overview of current clinical practices regarding the assessment of speech disorders in adult patients.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessment of adult speech disorders: current situation and needs in French-speaking clinical practice

Pommée

Balaguer

Mauclair

et al. 2021

Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology

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Introduction: Speech assessment methods used in clinical practice are varied and mainly perceptual and motor. Reliable assessment of speech disorders is essential for the tailoring of the patient's treatment plan. Objective: To describe current clinical practices and identify the shortcomings and needs reported by French-speaking clinicians regarding the assessment of speech disorders in adult patients. Methods: Data were collected using an online questionnaire for French-speaking speech and language pathologists (SLPs) in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Maghreb. Forty-nine questions were grouped into six domains: participant data, educational and occupational background, experience with speech disorders, patient population, tools and tasks for speech assessment, and possible lacks regarding the current assessment of speech disorders. Results: Responses from 119 clinicians were included in the analyses. SLPs generally use " a la carte" assessment with a large variety of tasks and speech samples. About one quarter of them do not use existing assessment batteries. Those who do mostly use them partially. Pseudo-words are rarely used and are absent from standardized batteries, in contrast to the major use of words and sentences. Perceptual evaluation largely prevails (mainly overall ratings of speech "intelligibility", "severity," and "comprehensibility" and percent-correct phonemes), whereas the recording equipment for acoustic measures is not standardized and only scarcely described by the SLPs. The most commonly used questionnaire to assess the functional impact of the speech disorder is the Voice Handicap Index; one quarter of the SLPs does not use any questionnaire. Overall, the available tools are considered only moderately satisfactory. The main reported shortcomings are a lack of objectivity and reproducibility of speech measures; exhaustiveness and consideration of specific speech parameters (prosody, speech rate, and nasality); practicality of the assessment tools. Conclusion:This study highlights a lack of standardization of the speech assessment in French-speaking adults and the need to offer new reliable tools for an optimized, accurate speech assessment. The automation of these tools would allow for rapid, reproducible, and accurate measures.

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