TY - JOUR
T1 - Vowel Intelligibility in Children with and Without Dysarthria
AU - Levy, Erika S.
AU - Leone, Dorothy
AU - Moya-Gale, Gemma
AU - Hsu, Sih Chiao
AU - Chen, Wenli
AU - Ramig, Lorraine O.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Hammill Institute on Disabilities.
PY - 2016/5/1
Y1 - 2016/5/1
N2 - Children with dysarthria due to cerebral palsy (CP) present with decreased vowel space area and reduced word intelligibility. Although a robust relationship exists between vowel space and word intelligibility, little is known about the intelligibility of vowels in this population. This exploratory study investigated the intelligibility of American English (AE) vowels produced by children with dysarthria and typically developing children (TD). Three CP and five TD repeated words with contrastive vowels /i-i/, /æ-ε/, /α-∧/, /o-u/ produced by a native AE adult. Adult listeners transcribed the utterances orthographically and rated their ease of understanding. Overall, CP presented with less-intelligible vowels than TD. For CP, a trend was found with the lowest intelligibility for /α/ (CP = 7%, TD = 66%), /i/ (CP = 30%, TD = 82%), and /∧/ (CP = 38%, TD = 99%), and more heterogeneous vowel confusions; however, intelligibility differences between vowels did not reach statistical significance. Clinical implications include that, unless further studies show vowel-specific effects, treatment targeting the entire vowel system may be warranted for increasing intelligibility.
AB - Children with dysarthria due to cerebral palsy (CP) present with decreased vowel space area and reduced word intelligibility. Although a robust relationship exists between vowel space and word intelligibility, little is known about the intelligibility of vowels in this population. This exploratory study investigated the intelligibility of American English (AE) vowels produced by children with dysarthria and typically developing children (TD). Three CP and five TD repeated words with contrastive vowels /i-i/, /æ-ε/, /α-∧/, /o-u/ produced by a native AE adult. Adult listeners transcribed the utterances orthographically and rated their ease of understanding. Overall, CP presented with less-intelligible vowels than TD. For CP, a trend was found with the lowest intelligibility for /α/ (CP = 7%, TD = 66%), /i/ (CP = 30%, TD = 82%), and /∧/ (CP = 38%, TD = 99%), and more heterogeneous vowel confusions; however, intelligibility differences between vowels did not reach statistical significance. Clinical implications include that, unless further studies show vowel-specific effects, treatment targeting the entire vowel system may be warranted for increasing intelligibility.
KW - childhood dysarthria
KW - intelligibility
KW - speech treatment
KW - treatment research
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84962223253&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1525740115618917
DO - 10.1177/1525740115618917
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84962223253
SN - 1525-7401
VL - 37
SP - 171
EP - 179
JO - Communication Disorders Quarterly
JF - Communication Disorders Quarterly
IS - 3
ER -