Automated screening for speech disorders using acoustic landmark detection

Benefits of intensive speech treatment have been documented for a range of speech signs in English speakers with Parkinson's Disease (PD). However, the answer to a critical question that whether the same treatment benefits speech variables including intelligibility in Mandarin speakers is still unclear. In order to develop a targeted speech treatment for Mandarin speakers with PD, we reviewed the efficacy of intensive speech treatment to improve vocal loudness and functional communication and discuss possible explanations for efficacy on Mandarin speakers with PD. Literatures about intensive speech treatment for Mandarin speakers with PD were retrieved from PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang and Weipu Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals (VIP) Database. Search strategy was (voice therapy OR speech therapy OR voice treatment OR speech treatment OR voice training OR speech training OR voice rehabilitation OR speech rehabilitation OR Lee Silverman voice treatment OR intensive speech treatment) and (Parkinson's disease) and (Mandarin speakers OR Chinese OR Chinese people). Five randomized controlled trials were selected and possible explanations for efficacy on individuals with PD are discussed. Further research directions are suggested. The existing evidence from treatment efficacy studies of intensive speech treatment provides support for improving vocal loudness, speech intelligibility, pitch and rate in Mandarin speakers with PD. Our future research will continue to work to conduct a large sample multicenter randomized controlled trial to provide high quality evidence and understand the basic mechanisms accompanying treatment-related change.

Assessment of speech sound production in young children provides the basis for diagnosis and treatment of speech sound disorders. Standardized single-word articulation tests are typically used for identification of speech sound errors because they can provide an efficient means of obtaining a speech sample for analysis and comparison to same-age peers. A major criticism of single-word articulation tests is that they may not accurately reflect speech sound production abilities in conversation. Comparison of performance in single-word and conversational contexts has produced conflicting results in the available research. The purpose of the present study was to compare speech samples obtained using an extensive single-word naming task with samples of continuous speech elicited by sentence imitation. It was hypothesized that there would be differences in overall speech sound production accuracy as well as differences in types and frequency of errors across the two sampling conditions. The present study is a pilot investigation as part of the development of the Phonological and Bilingual Articulation Assessment, English Version (PABA-E; Gildersleeve-Neumann, unpublished). Twelve preschool children ages 3;11 to 4;7 (years;months) from the Portland Metropolitan area participated in this study. Participants were monolingual native English speakers and exhibited typical speech sound development as measured by the GFTA-2 (Goldman-Fristoe, 2000). Hearing acuity for participants was within acceptable limits, and participants' families reported no significant illnesses or developmental concerns that would impact speech sound production abilities. Mean t-scores for percentage of consonants correct (PCC) in the single-word samples were significantly higher at the .05 level than those for the sentence imitation samples. There was no significant difference between the percentage of vowels produced correctly (PVC) in the two sampling conditions. Similar types of error patterns were found in both the single-word and continuous speech samples, however error frequency was relatively low for the participant population. Only the phonological process of stopping was found to be significantly different across sampling conditions. The mean frequency of occurrence for stopping was found to be significantly higher in continuous speech as compared with the production of single-words.

Auditory speech perception enables listeners to access phonological categories from speech sounds. During speech production and speech motor learning, speakers' experience matched auditory and somatosensory input. Accordingly, access to phonetic units might also be provided by somatosensory information. The present study assessed whether humans can identify vowels using somatosensory feedback, without auditory feedback. A tongue-positioning task was used in which participants were required to achieve different tongue postures within the /e, ε, a/ articulatory range, in a procedure that was totally nonspeech like, involving distorted visual feedback of tongue shape. Tongue postures were measured using electromagnetic articulography. At the end of each tongue-positioning trial, subjects were required to whisper the corresponding vocal tract configuration with masked auditory feedback and to identify the vowel associated with the reached tongue posture. Masked auditory feedback ensured that vowel categorization was based on somatosensory feedback rather than auditory feedback. A separate group of subjects was required to auditorily classify the whispered sounds. In addition, we modeled the link between vowel categories and tongue postures in normal speech production with a Bayesian classifier based on the tongue postures recorded from the same speakers for several repetitions of the /e, ε, a/ vowels during a separate speech production task. Overall, our results indicate that vowel categorization is possible with somatosensory feedback alone, with an accuracy that is similar to the accuracy of the auditory perception of whispered sounds, and in congruence with normal speech articulation, as accounted for by the Bayesian classifier.

Theoretical studies of the voice source in speech production are hampered by the lack of empirical measurements of the aerodynamic events around the glottis. This paper describes an attempt to obtain direct measurements of pressure-flow relations just below and above the glottis during normal speech production. To that end high resolution pressure recordings were made at two points in the trachea and in the pharynx. From these recordings accurate estimates of the flow in the trachea and pharynx can be obtained. It is shown how these estimates can be converted into estimates of transglottal flow. It appeared that the estimates of transglottal flow from tracheal flow are not dependent on the vowel produced. The estimates based on pharyngeal flow, on the other hand, depend to a large extent on the vowel. These findings are interpreted in the framework of acoustic models of speech production.

Emotional, social, behavioral, and mental health disorders in young children are increasingly prevalent and may have long-term effects, persisting from preschool into primary school (Carroll & Hurry, 2018). Such challenges can significantly impact children's ability to adapt to the classroom and access learning opportunities. To address these challenges, Boxall (2002) developed the concept of nurture groups, where a small group of students is removed from their regular classes for a limited period during the school year to model positive attachment relationships, develop emotional literacy, and provide opportunities for social learning while maintaining access to education (Loinaz, 2015). This literature review aims to explore the effectiveness of nurture groups in improving outcomes for young children with emotional, behavioral, and social difficulties in primary schools. The study reviews existing literature, examining the positive effects of nurture groups on children's well-being, while also critiquing current research. The results suggest that children with a broad spectrum of social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties may benefit from nurture groups, thereby making a strong case for creating nurturing schools. However, one potential concern is that some students who thrive in nurturing schools may struggle when they return to mainstream classes. Therefore, further comparable studies on a larger scale are required.

Decomposition of speech into periodic and aperiodic components is useful in analyzing and describing the characteristics of voice sources. Such a decomposition is also useful in controlling the excitation source for synthesis. This paper addresses the issue of decomposition of speech into periodic and aperiodic components in the context of speech production. The effectiveness of a recently proposed algorithm for decomposing speech into these components is examined for analysis of voice sources. Synthetic signals are generated using formant synthesis. Different sources of aperiodicity encountered in normal speech production are considered, using a set of parameters to control the synthetic signals. The sources of aperiodicity studied are: (1) additive pulsed or continuous random noise, and (2) modulation aperiodicities due to variation in the fundamental frequency, jitter, and shimmer. Three types of measures are used to characterize these voices: ratio of energies in the periodic and aperiodic components, perceptual spectral distance, and spectrograms. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the periodic-aperiodic decomposition algorithm for analyzing aperiodicities for a wide variety of voices, and point out the limitations of the algorithm.

Anticipatory labial co-articulation refers specifically to the early onset of features related to labiality, as, for example in the onset of rounding for rounded vowels. This particular example of anticipatory labial co-articulation has received considerable attention in recent research in normal speech production (Kent and Minifie, 1977). Some of this research has shown a temporally variable extent of anticipation related to the number of non-labial consonants preceding the rounded vowel (Benguerel and Cowan, 1974; Lubker, McAllister and Linker, 1979; Lubker, 1981). Other researchers have found relatively constant anticipation times (Gay, 1979; Bell-Berti and Harris, 1979, 1982). It has been suggested that inter-language differences may account for some of the differences in the results obtained in these various studies (Lubker and Gay, 1982). This is, of course, an important point since research in speech production is concerned primarily with underlying mechanisms. The need for separation of language specific variables and underlying mechanisms, therefore, is one motivation for part of the work presented in this chapter.

This study describes risk factors associated with language impairment in children with classic galactosaemia. Thirty-three 4-16-year-old participants with classic galactosaemia and a history of speech sound disorders completed a battery of cognitive and language measures and their parents completed a family history questionnaire. Nine of the sixteen (56%) participants with typical cognitive development and 15 of the 17 (88%) with borderline-low cognitive development had language impairments. Participants with typical cognitive development more often had an expressive language disorder, whereas those with borderline-low cognitive development more often had a mixed receptive-expressive language disorder. Participants with Q188R/Q188R genotypes had increased risk for both cognitive and language impairments. The IQs of younger siblings who did not consume milk postnatally were 10-56 points higher than the IQs of their older siblings with galactosaemia who had consumed milk postnatally. However, 4 of 5 younger siblings who were lactose-restricted from birth had language impairments. Typically-reported risk factors for language disorder, including parental history of speech/learning problems and low parental education level, were not significantly associated with cognitive or language impairments in the present sample of children with galactosaemia. Children with galactosaemia and speech disorders have a 4-6 times greater risk for language impairment than children with early speech disorders of unknown origin. Early dietary lactose may increase the risk for cognitive and language impairments; however, the lack of significant associations of language impairment with days of milk consumption, and other familial and educational risk factors, is consistent with prenatal causation.

Associations Between Key Language-Related Measures in Typically Developing School-Age Children

The oral structures such as the tongue and lips have remarkable somatosensory capacities, but understanding the roles of somatosensation in speech production requires a more comprehensive knowledge of somatosensation in the speech production system in its entirety, including the respiratory, laryngeal, and supralaryngeal subsystems. This review was conducted to summarize the system-wide somatosensory information available for speech production. The search was conducted with PubMed/Medline and Google Scholar for articles published until November 2023. Numerous search terms were used in conducting the review, which covered the topics of psychophysics, basic and clinical behavioral research, neuroanatomy, and neuroscience. The current understanding of speech somatosensation rests primarily on the two pillars of psychophysics and neuroscience. The confluence of polymodal afferent streams supports the development, maintenance, and refinement of speech production. Receptors are both canonical and noncanonical, with the latter occurring especially in the muscles innervated by the facial nerve. Somatosensory representation in the cortex is disproportionately large and provides for sensory interactions. Speech somatosensory function is robust over the lifespan, with possible declines in advanced aging. The understanding of somatosensation in speech disorders is largely disconnected from research and theory on speech production. A speech somatoscape is proposed as the generalized, system-wide sensation of speech production, with implications for speech development, speech motor control, and speech disorders.

906 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 73, NUMBER 4 (1997) sketches up the development of the Indo-European ablaut (147). In morphology, B makes the following statements about substantival stems: The basic language had two stems only: o-stem and C-stem because the a-stem developed later and ended C [eH2]. The o-stem made a separate group with its own system of suffixes. B divides C-stem into two further types (hysterodynamic and proterodynamic) and discusses declination types in that framework (175). His ideas on the development of feminine and neuter adjectives deserve special attention (193). The chapter on conjugations , though, lacks important insights like those above. B's Indo-European linguistic introduction is a valuable , excellent work, useful for those interested in the results and the problems of modern Indo-European linguistics. Some of B's hypotheses may be disputable, but scholarship cannot exist without either hypotheses or disputes. [Imre Tóth, JozsefAttila University, Hungary.] Producing speech: Contemporary issues for Katherine Safford Harris. Ed. by Fredericka Bell-Berti and Lawrence J. Raphael. (AIP series in modern acoustics and signal processing, 4.) Woodbury, NY: AIP Press, 1995. Pp. xxi, 567. This festschrift for Katherine Harris is a collection of 34 papers by over 60 researchers in the field of speech production. As a whole, the volume is a survey of cuoent research in the field. In addition, a few of the chapters review ongoing issues in speech production. This book is thus useful for both the specialist and nonspecialist. The chapters discuss articulatory and acoustic data, data from adults and children, and data from normal and abnormal speech. 'Section 1: The segment' (3-165), contains eleven chapters examining the segmental organization of speech. Among others, papers by Sieb Noteboom and by Bell-Berti, Rena Krakow, Carole Gelfer, and Suzanne Boyce discuss effects of segmental lookahead and carryover. Catherine Browman and Louis Goldstein and Leigh Lisker examine positional effects on segment realization. Gary Weismer, Kristin Tjaden, and Ray Kent; Carole Gelfer and Sarita Eisenberg; and Michael McClean, Mary Cord, and Donna Levandowski discuss implications of abnormal speech on models of articulatory organization. 'Section 2: The source' (169-318), contains ten chapters on respiration and phonation during speech. Robert Porter, David Hogue, and Emily Tobey; R. J. Baken; and Ingo Titze examine the empirical adequacy of models of respiration and phonation. Dale Metz and Nicholas Schiavetti; Peter Alfonso ; MasaYUKi Sawashima, Kiyoshi Makiyama, and Naoko Shimazaki; and Christy Ludlow discuss respiration andphonation inpersons with abnormal production and audition. Kiyoshi Honda; Hajime Hirose; and Ronald Scherer, V. J. Vail, and B. Rockwell focus on the larynx, and examine laryngeal anatomy and measurement during speech production. 'Section 3: The utterance' (321-415) contains six chapters related to suprasegmental patterns in fluent and disfluent speech. Chapters by Angelien Sanderman and René Collier; Krakow, Bell-Berti, and Q. Emily Wang; and Carol Fowler examine acoustic and articulatory influence ofprosodie structure , including effects of both prosodie constituency and phrasal accent. Paula Square, Claude Chevrie -Muller, and Frances Freeman consider suprasegmental characteristics of three different types ofspeech disorder and find evidence for dissociations between organizational levels in these disorders. 'Section 4: Feedback' (417-65), contains three chapters on the role ofall types offeedback on speech production. Vincent Gracco proposes a new perspective on invariance, claiming articulatory instructions are invariant modulo contextual feedback information. Nancy McGarr and Melanie McNutt Campbell, and Emily Tobey examine the hypothesis that abnormal speech production in the hearing impaired is in fact normal speech production with a lack of feedback. 'Section 5: The segment (reprise)' (469-537) contains four chapters which discuss more theoretical issues in the segmental organization of speech. These chapters by Elliot Saltzman, Anders Löfqvist, Jeff Kinsella-Shaw, Bruce Kay, and Phillip Rubin; Richard McGowan; Betty Tuller and J. A. S. Kelso; and Kevin Munhall and J. A. Jones all focus on theories of the organization and parameterization of speech movements as a dynamical system . They are an appropriate closing to the volume as each of the chapters raises as many questions for investigation as it answers, providing new directions for future research. [Stefan Frisch, Indiana University .] A course in generalized phrase structure grammar. By Paul Bennett. London: UCL Press, 1995. Pp...

The aim of this study was to examine how nonword repetition (NWR) performance may be impacted by the presence of concomitant speech and language disorders in young children who stutter (CWS). One hundred forty-one children (88 CWS and 53 children who do not stutter [CWNS]) participated. CWS were divided into groups based on the presence of speech sound and/or language disorder or typical speech sound production and language abilities. NWR abilities were measured using stimuli composed of one- to four-syllable nonwords. CWS with typical speech and language and CWNS had higher accuracy scores than CWS with concomitant speech and language disorders. We found no difference in accuracy scores between CWNS and CWS with typical speech and language abilities, nor did we find differences between CWS with speech sound disorder and CWS with both speech sound and language disorders. Accuracy decreased as nonword length increased for all groups. We found that the presence of a concomitant speech and language disorder was a driving factor behind poorer NWR performance in CWS. Accuracy scores differentiated CWS with concomitant disorders from CWS with typical speech and language but not CWS with typical speech and language from CWNS. Considering the speech and language abilities of CWS helped clarify poorer NWR performance and enhances generalizability to the population that exists clinically.

Can articulatory behavior in motor speechdisorders be accounted for by theories of normal speech production?

Normal language acquisition and adult verbal behavior presuppose speech production. This fact makes it reasonable to assume that languages tend to evolve sound patterns that can be seen as adaptations to biological constraints of speech production. This reasoning seems valid also for speech perception and speech development, which presumably introduce their own boundary conditions on linguistic form. The constraints of speaking, listening, and learning thus interact in complex ways to delimit humanly possible sound patterns.

Sixty-five patients with cleft palate, with or without cleft lip, who received previous pharyngeal flap surgery for chronic velopharyngeal dysfunction in our department, were examined for velopharyngeal status, speech production patterns, and evidence of nasal airway obstruction. Of the 65 subjects, 54 (83.1 percent) showed velopharyngeal function within normal limits, 43 (66.1 percent) showed normal or near-normal speech production, and 58 (89.2 percent) reported snoring sometimes or often. Of the 58 reporting snoring, electrocardiogram (ECG) data for 33 were examined for evidence of right ventricular hypertrophy. Only one (3 percent) of the 33 showed such possible indication. We conclude that by our methods, pharyngeal flap surgery is an effective treatment for velopharyngeal dysfunction. After surgery, patients may report symptoms of nasal airway obstruction during sleep but are not expected to show ECG changes in cardiac function resulting from oxygen deprivation.