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Voice Disorders and Speech Intelligibility in Developmental Dysarthria: Influence of Speech Task
Micalle Carl1, Sapir Amira Shmuel1, Michal Icht1
1Department of Communication Disorders, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel.
Summary
Voice quality in developmental dysarthria varies significantly with speech tasks. Acoustic measures of voice quality did not correlate with speech intelligibility in children and adolescents.
Area of Science:
- Speech-language pathology
- Neuroscience
- Acoustic phonetics
Background:
- Developmental dysarthria often involves phonatory subsystem impairment, affecting speech intelligibility.
- The impact of different speech tasks on voice quality and its relation to intelligibility in this population is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze how speech tasks influence acoustic voice quality measures in individuals with developmental dysarthria.
- To explore the relationship between voice quality and speech intelligibility across various speech tasks in this group.
Main Methods:
- 31 children and adolescents with developmental dysarthria performed sustained phonation, single-word production, and spontaneous speech tasks.
- Acoustic measures (CPP, jitter, shimmer, HNR) and intelligibility assessments were conducted.
- Linear mixed-effects models analyzed task effects and voice quality-intelligibility relationships.
Main Results:
- All acoustic voice quality measures showed significant task-dependent variations.
- Sustained phonation exhibited the best voice quality, while single-word tasks showed the poorest.
- Acoustic measures of sustained phonation correlated with perceptual ratings, but no acoustic measures predicted intelligibility.
Conclusions:
- Speech task significantly impacts voice quality in developmental dysarthria due to varying motor demands.
- While acoustic measures reflect perceptual voice quality in sustained phonation, they do not directly predict intelligibility.
- Task selection is crucial for voice assessment; phonatory function alone may not fully represent functional communication in developmental dysarthria.
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