An audiological evaluation method of grading the speech disturbance (author's transl)

Abstract

Various speech methods have been devised and applied to examine speech disturbances. However, there have been no methods to determine quantitatively the degrees of the various speech disturbances, and to decide whether they have recovered or not on the basis of the values obtained from tests. Any methods have hardly been proposed to express quantitatively conversational abilities and to evaluate objectively social adaptabilities of speech disorders.The author proposed a new quantitative method for judging the degrees of speech disturbances. The principle of this method is an auditory comparison of the speech of the patients with speech disturbances and the artificially distorted speech.Eighteen kinds (No.1…No.18) of distorted words were used in this test, which resemble speech disturbances. Standard test word sounds were classified into 6 degrees based on the auditory impression and the discrimination in pronunciation.Degree I was the normal speech (No. 1, speech articulation score 98-100%). Degree II was slightest disturbances in pronunciation (No. 2, 3 and 9). Degree III was slight disturbance (No. 7 and 8 articulation score 50-75%). Degree IV was the moderate uttering disturbances (No. 4, 10, 13, 15 and 16, articulation score 30-50%). Degree V was severe uttering disturbances (No. 5, 11, 14 and 17, articulation score 10-30%). Degree VI was the loss of speech communication (No. 6, 12 and 18, articulation score, not higher than 10%).The test was applied to 30 patients with convulsive paralytic dysarthria. The degrees of disturbances in these patients almost coincided with their speech abilities in conversation. There was no difference of scores obtained by skillful and unskilled testers. Therefore, the conversation of patients with speech disturbances could be easily classified into the grades of conversational abilities by this test.It is possible to judge easily the degrees of conversational abilities with this test when this is applied to speech disturbances in the physiological process.