Articulatory Proficiency Research Articles

Secure account-based data capture with smartphones – preliminary results from a study of articulatory precision in clinical depression

Abstract Smartphone technology is continuously being updated through software and hardware changes. At present, a limited number of studies have been undertaken to assess the impact of these changes on data collection for linguistic research. This paper discusses the potential of smartphones to gather reliable recordings, along with ethical considerations for storing additional personal information when working in other contexts (i.e. healthcare settings). A pilot study was undertaken using the FitvoiceTM account-based application to analyse articulatory proficiency in depressed and healthy participants. Results suggest that phonetic differences exist between these groups in terms of plosive production, and that smartphones are capable of adequately recording these minute aspects of the speech signal for analysis.

Practice makes perfect: the consequences of lexical proficiency for articulation

Abstract Many studies report shorter acoustic durations, more coarticulation and reduced articulatory targets for frequent words. This study investigates a factor ignored in discussions on the relation between frequency and phonetic detail, namely, that motor skills improve with experience. Since frequency is a measure of experience, it follows that frequent words should show increased articulatory proficiency. We used EMA to test this prediction on German inflected verbs with [a] as stem vowels. Modeling median vertical tongue positions with quantile regression, we observed significant modulation by frequency of the U-shaped trajectory characterizing the articulation of the [a:]. These modulations reflect two constraints, one favoring smooth trajectories through anticipatory coarticulation, and one favoring clear articulation by realizing lower minima. The predominant pattern across sensors, exponents, and speech rate suggests that the constraint of clarity dominates for lower-frequency words. For medium-frequency words, the smoothness constraint leads to a raising of the trajectory. For the higher-frequency words, both constraints are met simultaneously, resulting in low minima and stronger coarticulation. These consequences of motor practice for articulation challenge both the common view that a higher-frequency of use comes with more articulatory reduction, and cognitive models of speech production positing that articulation is post-lexical.

Relationship between speech motor control and speech intelligibility in children with speech sound disorders

The current study was undertaken to investigate the impact of speech motor issues on the speech intelligibility of children with moderate to severe speech sound disorders (SSD) within the context of the PROMPT intervention approach. The word-level Children's Speech Intelligibility Measure (CSIM), the sentence-level Beginner's Intelligibility Test (BIT) and tests of speech motor control and articulation proficiency were administered to 12 children (3:11 to 6:7 years) before and after PROMPT therapy. PROMPT treatment was provided for 45min twice a week for 8 weeks. Twenty-four naïve adult listeners aged 22–46 years judged the intelligibility of the words and sentences. For CSIM, each time a recorded word was played to the listeners they were asked to look at a list of 12 words (multiple-choice format) and circle the word while for BIT sentences, the listeners were asked to write down everything they heard. Words correctly circled (CSIM) or transcribed (BIT) were averaged across three naïve judges to calculate percentage speech intelligibility. Speech intelligibility at both the word and sentence level was significantly correlated with speech motor control, but not articulatory proficiency. Further, the severity of speech motor planning and sequencing issues may potentially be a limiting factor in connected speech intelligibility and highlights the need to target these issues early and directly in treatment.Learning outcomes: The reader will be able to: (1) outline the advantages and disadvantages of using word- and sentence-level speech intelligibility tests; (2) describe the impact of speech motor control and articulatory proficiency on speech intelligibility; and (3) describe how speech motor control and speech intelligibility data may provide critical information to aid treatment planning.

Health Care Reform and Speech-Language Pathology Practice

Health Care Reform and Speech-Language Pathology Practice

Changes in articulatory proficiency following microvascular reconstruction in oral or oropharyngeal cancer

Articulatory proficiency of /r/ and /s/ sounds, voice quality and resonance, speech intelligibility, and intraoral sensation were examined prospectively before operation, and at four time points during a 1-year follow-up after microvascular transfer. Forty-one patients with a large oral or oropharyngeal carcinoma undergoing tumor resection and free-flap reconstruction usually combined with radiotherapy participated in the study. Articulation, voice, and resonance were investigated both live and from recorded speech samples by two trained linguistic examiners. The patients completed a self-rating of their speech intelligibility and were assessed for anterior intraoral surface sensation by means of 2-point moving discrimination. Misarticulations of /r/ and /s/ increased significantly after the therapy. Voice quality and resonance remained essentially normal. Speech intelligibility deteriorated significantly. Intraoral sensation decreased postoperatively but was not related to speech outcome. Sensate flaps did not prove to be superior in relation to speech tasks. A multidisciplinary approach is advocated in assessment of speech outcome after cancer surgery. Speech therapy is strongly recommended, even in the absence of a gross articulatory handicap.

Augmentative and alternative communication options for children with developmental apraxia of speech: three case studies

This article describes the results of three case studies of children diagnosed with developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) or suspected DAS. A multimodal augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention approach using speech, gestures, manual signs, and various AAC aids was incorporated into each child's intervention plan. These included both lowtechnology aids (i.e., context-specific communication boards, remnant books, and symbol dictionaries) and high-technology aids (i.e., voice output communication aids and print output communication aids) in each child's intervention program. The AAC aids were designed to meet the unique communication needs of a preschooler, an elementary school-aged child, and a junior high school student. Previously, the children had been involved in a more traditional DAS intervention program primarily focusing on improving articulatory proficiency and supporting natural speech through sign language. The case studies describe how AAC aids and strategies successfully supplemented the child's natural speech and provided greater opportunities for facilitating language development, communicative competence, and academic achievement. Using AAC aids and strategies, the children had greater opportunities to initiate and maintain interactions as well as to repair communication breakdowns across various communication situations with both familiar and unfamiliar communication partners.

Effects of Long-Term Tracheostomy on Spectral Characteristics of Vowel Production

This study investigated the effects of long-term tracheostomy on the development of speech. Eight children who underwent tracheotomy during the prelingual period were compared to matched controls on selected spectral parameters of the speech acoustic signal and standard measures of oral-motor, phonologic, and articulatory proficiency. Analysis of formant frequency values revealed significant between-group differences. Children with histories of long-term tracheostomy showed reduced acoustic vowel space, as defined by group formant frequency values. This suggests that these children were limited in their ability to produce extreme vocal tract configurations for vowels (a,i,u) postdecannulation. Oral motor patterns were less mature, and sound substitutions were not only more variable for this group, but also reflected a persistent overlay of maladaptive compensations developed during cannulation.

Orosensory perception and articulatory proficiency in hearing-impaired adults.

Articulation errors and intelligibility of rated speech of 75 hearing-impaired young adults were compared to their errors on a test of orosensory perception. Analysis indicated no significant correlations between articulation, intelligibility of speech, and orosensory perception when total errors were compared. Some significant relationships were evident, however, for types of error. In addition, orosensory perception errors were compared with degree of hearing loss and history of use of amplification. These results indicated no significant relationships between the communication characteristics and total orosensory perception errors; however, when types of orosensory perception errors were compared, several significant relationships were evident. In general, present results may be useful in the development of appropriate remediation strategies for use by speech-language pathologists working with hearing-impaired persons.

The emergence of vowels: 17 to 26 months

The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in the acoustic structure of a child’s vowels during early language development. Recordings were made of a child’s speech at approximately two month intervals from 17 months to 29 months. The first and second formants of all identifiable English front and back vowels were analyzed spectrographically and subsequently plotted on an F1-F2 plane. The data suggest that vowel formants shift over time towards a more precisely defined vowel space, implying that articulatory proficiency changes in accord with maturation.

Managing the Environment of the Stutterer

Stuttering in children is found to be related to lack of language facility or articulatory proficiency, lack of harmony and/or lack of structure in the child's environment. The model presented emphasizes a goal-directed approach to energizing the resources available in the child's surroundings, i.e., the home and the school, in facilitating speech fluency. Principles and strategies are offered which relate to the two general goals involved with speech fluency and environmental management, respectively. Encouragement and respect, components of satisfactory self-esteem, are integrated into the strategies presented. An attempt has been made to provide principles on which the creative speech-language clinician may devise additional and caring strategies which may prove helpful to disfluent children.

Analysis of pauses occuring in the speech of children with consistent misarticulations

Pauses that occur in the speech of children with misarticulations were measured and compared with those of normal children in terms of the duration of pauses and frequency of occurence. The two groups were compared on three types of speaking tasks: paraphrased speech, picture-series description, and conversation. The two groups were also compared on three levels of duration categories: 10–50 msec, articulatory pauses; 51–250 msec, mixed pauses; and 251–3000 msec, hesitation pauses. There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of duration or frequency of pauses. There were significant differences in the duration of pauses in terms of the speaking tasks. Picture-series description produced the highest mean pause durations; conversation the lowest. Because higher duration of pauses indicate more cognitive difficulty in formulating language, it was concluded that children with misarticulations do not have a more difficult time with the cognitive aspects of language formulation, but that they do experience trouble in some level of the encoding process, which causes a reduction in articulatory proficiency. It was also concluded that picture description is a more difficult speaking task cognitively in terms of language production.

Clinician Bias in Evaluating Speech Proficiency

Summary The effect of clinician bias in evaluating the speech of children was studied. Case presentations were made to 30 clinicians by means of videotape. Prior to evaluation, graduate-student clinicians were exposed to fabricated case-histories containing positive-bias or negative-bias factors, or to no case-history information. The clinicians generated phonetic inventories, scaled judgments of articulatory proficiency, scaled prognoses, and scaled therapeutic judgments. The case-history preconditions had little effect on the measured behaviour of the clinicians. Implications for clinical evaluative procedures are discussed.

Young children's knowledge of morphological and phonological rules

Twenty preschool children were given tests of their implicit knowledge of morphological and phonological rules. Scores on the two tests were not correlated, and subjects with differing knowledge of phonological rules did not differ significantly in articulatory proficiency. Children's responses and test behavior are described and discussed.

Effect of Frequencies on Speech Therapy On Several Measures of Articulatory Proficiency

Effect of Frequencies on Speech Therapy On Several Measures of Articulatory Proficiency