Abstract

To examine the perception of synthetic speech by individuals with severe intellectual disabilities using a closed-response format task. Participants were 14 individuals with severe intellectual disabilities and a group of 14 typical individuals. A between-groups design was used to compare the performance of the 2 groups on word identification accuracy and word latency tasks. Data were analyzed using a repeated measures design. The results indicated that the performance of a group of individuals with severe intellectual disabilities was significantly poorer (p<.05) than that of typical individuals on the word identification task. Data analyzed for practice effects indicated that individuals with severe intellectual disabilities demonstrated a significant reduction (p<.01) in their word latency scores across sessions. Furthermore, there was an absence of significant effect (p>.01) of stimulus type (i.e., repeated vs. novel), indicating that individuals with intellectual disabilities are able to generalize their knowledge of the acoustic-phonetic properties of synthetic speech to novel stimuli. This study indicates that persons with severe intellectual impairments become more proficient at recognizing synthetic speech as a result of repeated exposure to it. These results have significant clinical implications for people who use speech-generating devices.

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