Design and Development of a Speech Intelligibility Test Based on Pseudowords in French: Why and How?

Purpose The current intelligibility tests performed on speakers with atypical speech production are limited by the ability of listeners to restore distorted sequences. This results in a measure that is overvalued when compared with the real articulatory performance. In this article, we present a new intelligibility test in order to neutralize the commonly encountered bias in traditional perception-based assessments. We present the construction of the acoustic–phonetic decoding task and its first test during a perceptual judgment test of intelligibility and during a result comparison with a global perceptual evaluation. Method We developed a very large pseudoword directory including about 90,000 forms that respect French phonotactic constraints. From this directory, we have created lists of pseudowords intended to be recorded for the constitution of the corpus. These lists are established due to an algorithm integrating predefined linguistic constraints and produced by 47 speakers (nine healthy and 38 patients). We then performed a perceptual judgment of intelligibility test with 20 listeners who transcribed these productions. Results At the end of the data processing stage, we obtained a Perceived Phonological Deviation (PPD) score for each speaker that reflects the average number of features altered per phoneme. We then compared the PPD score with a global intelligibility score derived from a global perceptual assessment of intelligibility and of the alteration severity. Conclusions The current findings confirm that a speech intelligibility test based on pseudowords in French achieves fine-grained PPD scores, which enables discrimination between patients and healthy speakers. Moreover, the PPD score is related to the global intelligibility score, especially in severity. Further studies are needed to better understand the discrimination power of this intelligibility test based on an acoustic–phonetic decoding task.

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A Family With Autosomal-Dominant Progressive Sensorineural Hearing Loss

American Journal of Audiology ◽

10.1044/1059-0889.0501.23 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 23-32 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Chris Halpin ◽

Barbara Herrmann ◽

Margaret Whearty

Keyword(s):

Speech Production ◽

Hearing Aids ◽

Role Models ◽

Speech Intelligibility ◽

Large Scale ◽

Speech Language Pathology ◽

The Family ◽

Patient Will ◽

Language Pathology

The family described in this article provides an unusual opportunity to relate findings from genetic, histological, electrophysiological, psychophysical, and rehabilitative investigation. Although the total number evaluated is large (49), the known, living affected population is smaller (14), and these are spread from age 20 to age 59. As a result, the findings described above are those of a large-scale case study. Clearly, more data will be available through longitudinal study of the individuals documented in the course of this investigation but, given the slow nature of the progression in this disease, such studies will be undertaken after an interval of several years. The general picture presented to the audiologist who must rehabilitate these cases is that of a progressive cochlear degeneration that affects only thresholds at first, and then rapidly diminishes speech intelligibility. The expected result is that, after normal language development, the patient may accept hearing aids well, encouraged by the support of the family. Performance and satisfaction with the hearing aids is good, until the onset of the speech intelligibility loss, at which time the patient will encounter serious difficulties and may reject hearing aids as unhelpful. As the histological and electrophysiological results indicate, however, the eighth nerve remains viable, especially in the younger affected members, and success with cochlear implantation may be expected. Audiologic counseling efforts are aided by the presence of role models and support from the other affected members of the family. Speech-language pathology services were not considered important by the members of this family since their speech production developed normally and has remained very good. Self-correction of speech was supported by hearing aids and cochlear implants (Case 5’s speech production was documented in Perkell, Lane, Svirsky, & Webster, 1992). These patients received genetic counseling and, due to the high penetrance of the disease, exhibited serious concerns regarding future generations and the hope of a cure.

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Instrumental Assessment in Cleft Palate Care

Perspectives on Speech Science and Orofacial Disorders ◽

10.1044/ssod23.2.49 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 49-61 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jamie Perry ◽

Graham Schenck

Keyword(s):

Cleft Palate ◽

New Developments ◽

Perceptual Evaluation ◽

Advantages And Disadvantages ◽

Instrumental Assessment ◽

Speech Language Pathologist ◽

Hypernasal Speech ◽

Perceptual Assessment ◽

Velopharyngeal Function ◽

And Function

Despite advances in surgical management, it is estimated that 20–30% of children with repaired cleft palate will continue to have hypernasal speech and require a second surgery to create normal velopharyngeal function (Bricknell, McFadden, & Curran, 2002; Härtel, Karsten, & Gundlach, 1994; McWilliams, 1990). A qualitative perceptual assessment by a speech-language pathologist is considered the most important step of the evaluation for children with resonance disorders (Peterson-Falzone, Hardin-Jones, & Karnell, 2010). Direct and indirect instrumental analyses should be used to confirm or validate the perceptual evaluation of an experienced speech-language pathologist (Paal, Reulbach, Strobel-Schwarthoff, Nkenke, & Schuster, 2005). The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of current instrumental assessment methods used in cleft palate care. Both direct and indirect instrumental procedures will be reviewed with descriptions of the advantages and disadvantages of each. Lastly, new developments for evaluating velopharyngeal structures and function will be provided.

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What Have We Learned From Physiological Approaches to Characterizing Dysarthria and Other Speech Production Disorders?

Perspectives on Speech Science and Orofacial Disorders ◽

10.1044/ssod20.2.37 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 37-46

Author(s):

Nicole M. Etter

Keyword(s):

Speech Production ◽

Speech Disorders ◽

Research Literature ◽

Systematic Research ◽

Physiological Measures ◽

Validity And Reliability ◽

Assessment Measures ◽

Perceptual Assessment ◽

Perceptual Characteristics ◽

Diagnostic Resolution

Traditionally, speech-language pathologists (SLP) have been trained to develop interventions based on a select number of perceptual characteristics of speech without or through minimal use of objective instrumental and physiologic assessment measures of the underlying articulatory subsystems. While indirect physiological assumptions can be made from perceptual assessment measures, the validity and reliability of those assumptions are tenuous at best. Considering that neurological damage will result in various degrees of aberrant speech physiology, the need for physiologic assessments appears highly warranted. In this context, do existing physiological measures found in the research literature have sufficient diagnostic resolution to provide distinct and differential data within and between etiological classifications of speech disorders and versus healthy controls? The goals of this paper are (a) to describe various physiological and movement-related techniques available to objectively study various dysarthrias and speech production disorders and (b) to develop an appreciation for the need for increased systematic research to better define physiologic features of dysarthria and speech production disorders and their relation to know perceptual characteristics.

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Improved Environment-Aware–Based Noise Reduction System for Cochlear Implant Users Based on Knowledge Transfer Approach (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.25460 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Lieber Po-Hung Li ◽

Ji-Yan Han ◽

Wei-Zhong Zheng ◽

Ren-Jie Huang ◽

Ying-Hui Lai

Keyword(s):

Knowledge Transfer ◽

Cochlear Implant ◽

Noise Reduction ◽

Speech Intelligibility ◽

Middle Layer ◽

Successful Implementation ◽

Perceptual Evaluation ◽

Reduction System ◽

Listening Tests ◽

Implementation Costs

BACKGROUND The cochlear implant technology is a well-known approach to help deaf patients hear speech again. It can improve speech intelligibility in quiet conditions; however, it still has room for improvement in noisy conditions. More recently, it has been proven that deep learning–based noise reduction (NR), such as noise classification and deep denoising autoencoder (NC+DDAE), can benefit the intelligibility performance of patients with cochlear implants compared to classical noise reduction algorithms. OBJECTIVE Following the successful implementation of the NC+DDAE model in our previous study, this study aimed to (1) propose an advanced noise reduction system using knowledge transfer technology, called NC+DDAE_T, (2) examine the proposed NC+DDAE_T noise reduction system using objective evaluations and subjective listening tests, and (3) investigate which layer substitution of the knowledge transfer technology in the NC+DDAE_T noise reduction system provides the best outcome. METHODS The knowledge transfer technology was adopted to reduce the number of parameters of the NC+DDAE_T compared with the NC+DDAE. We investigated which layer should be substituted using short-time objective intelligibility (STOI) and perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ) scores, as well as t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding to visualize the features in each model layer. Moreover, we enrolled ten cochlear implant users for listening tests to evaluate the benefits of the newly developed NC+DDAE_T. RESULTS The experimental results showed that substituting the middle layer (ie, the second layer in this study) of the noise-independent DDAE (NI-DDAE) model achieved the best performance gain regarding STOI and PESQ scores. Therefore, the parameters of layer three in the NI-DDAE were chosen to be replaced, thereby establishing the NC+DDAE_T. Both objective and listening test results showed that the proposed NC+DDAE_T noise reduction system achieved similar performances compared with the previous NC+DDAE in several noisy test conditions. However, the proposed NC+DDAE_T only needs a quarter of the number of parameters compared to the NC+DDAE. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated that knowledge transfer technology can help to reduce the number of parameters in an NC+DDAE while keeping similar performance rates. This suggests that the proposed NC+DDAE_T model may reduce the implementation costs of this noise reduction system and provide more benefits for cochlear implant users.

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Development of a speech intelligibility test for hearing aid research

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/1.2028771 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 88 (S1) ◽

pp. S175-S175

Author(s):

Michael Nilsson ◽

Jean Sullivan ◽

Sigfrid D. Soli

Keyword(s):

Speech Intelligibility ◽

Hearing Aid ◽

Intelligibility Test

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Avaliação das habilidades auditivas em crianças com alterações de aprendizagem

Revista CEFAC ◽

10.1590/s1516-18462010005000062 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 662-670 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Tatiane Maria Pelitero ◽

Alessandra Kerli da Silva Manfredi ◽

Andrea Pires Corrêa Schneck

Keyword(s):

Speech Intelligibility ◽

Intelligibility Test

OBJETIVO: comparar o desempenho na Avaliação Simplificada do Processamento Auditivo (ASPA) e no Pediatric Speech Intelligibility Test (PSI), de crianças com alteração de Aprendizagem da Leitura e Escrita e sem este tipo de alteração. MÉTODOS: participaram da pesquisa 28 crianças na faixa etária de 8 a 12 anos, do sexo masculino e feminino. Os participantes foram submetidos ao Teste de Desempenho Escolar (TDE) para a categorização dos grupos de estudo e controle, e, para avaliação das habilidades auditivas foram aplicados a ASPA e o Teste PSI. RESULTADOS: não foi observada associação estatisticamente significante entre o desempenho nos testes de Processamento Auditivo (PA) e o grupo com dificuldades de aprendizagem, apesar de ter sido verificada maior frequência de alterações no grupo de estudo em relação ao grupo controle, em todos os testes. Na ASPA, o teste em que se observou maior número de alterações foi o Teste de Memória Sequencial Verbal, contudo, o Teste de Memória Sequencial Não-verbal foi o que mostrou maior diferença entre os grupos. CONCLUSÃO: Não foram encontradas diferenças estatisticamente significantes no desempenho na Avaliação Simplificada do Processamento Auditivo (ASPA) e no Pediatric Speech Intelligibility Test (PSI), das crianças com alteração de Aprendizagem da Leitura e Escrita e sem alteração.

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