Investigation of the effectiveness of articulation therapy through tele-practice on children with cleft palate in Khuzestan Province during COVID-19 pandemic.

INTRODUCTION: A cleft palate is a common type of facial malformation. Compensatory articulation errors are one of the important causes of unclear speech in children with cleft palate. Tele-practice (TP) helps to connect therapists and clients for assessment and therapy. Our goal is to investigate the effectiveness of articulation therapy through tele-practice on cleft palate children in Khuzestan Province during the COVID-19 pandemic. MATERIALS & METHODS: Before starting the treatment, a 20-min speech sample was recorded individually from all the children. Speech intelligibility and the percentage of correct consonants were assessed for each speech sample. The control group received treatment sessions in person at the cleft palate center, and the other group received treatment via tele-practice using the ZOOM platform. Treatment sessions were provided in the form of 45-60-min group sessions, twice a week, for 5 weeks (10 sessions in total). After 10 treatment sessions, the speech sample was recorded again. The level of parental satisfaction was measured using a Likert 5-level survey. RESULTS: The mean score of intelligibility of the two groups decreased (-1.4400 and 0.7200). The two groups' mean percentage of correct consonants increased. (26.09 and 17.90). In both groups, the mean score of parents' satisfaction with the treatment was high (3.44 and 3.84). The mean of difference before and after the speech intelligibility and the percentage of correct consonants variables in both groups was statistically significant (P = 0.001 and P = 0.002, respectively). In both groups, the satisfaction variable was not associated with a statistically significant difference (P = 0.067). CONCLUSION: The effectiveness of in-person therapy over a certain period of time is higher than tele-practice. Nevertheless, the results demonstrated an increase in the intelligibility of speech and the percentage of correct consonants in both groups, thus proving the effectiveness of articulation therapy in correcting compensatory articulation errors in children with cleft palate through in-person and tele-practice.

Exploring Motor Speech Disorders in Low and Minimally Verbal Autistic Individuals: An Auditory-Perceptual Analysis.

PURPOSE: Motor deficits are widely documented among autistic individuals, and speech characteristics consistent with a motor speech disorder have been reported in prior literature. We conducted an auditory-perceptual analysis of speech production skills in low and minimally verbal autistic individuals as a step toward clarifying the nature of speech production impairments in this population and the potential link between oromotor functioning and language development. METHOD: Fifty-four low or minimally verbal autistic individuals aged 4-18 years were video-recorded performing nonspeech oromotor tasks and producing phonemes, syllables, and words in imitation. Three trained speech-language pathologists provided auditory perceptual ratings of 11 speech features reflecting speech subsystem performance and overall speech production ability. The presence, attributes, and severity of signs of oromotor dysfunction were analyzed, as were relative performance on nonspeech and speech tasks and correlations between perceptual speech features and language skills. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide evidence of a motor speech disorder in this population, characterized by perceptual speech features including reduced intelligibility, decreased consonant and vowel precision, and impairments of speech coordination and consistency. Speech deficits were more associated with articulation than with other speech subsystems. Speech production was more impaired than nonspeech oromotor abilities in a subgroup of the sample. Oromotor deficits were significantly associated with expressive and receptive language skills. Findings are interpreted in the context of known characteristics of the pediatric motor speech disorders childhood apraxia of speech and childhood dysarthria. These results, if replicated in future studies, have significant potential to improve the early detection of language impairments, inform the development of speech and language interventions, and aid in the identification of neurobiological mechanisms influencing communication development.

Infants’ early associations between segments of words and referents: Precursors of morphology acquisition / Asociación entre segmentos de palabras y referentes en bebés: precursores de la adquisición de morfología

Antecedents and objective: During morphology acquisition, children must learn to segment and associate the morphemes of a word to its meaning or grammatical function, despite the complex morphological variability children may encounter in their linguistic environment. The present study explores the ability of 9–12-month-old infants to segment a morpheme-like syllable of varying pseudowords and associate it to a novel object. Participants and method: Thirty-nine Spanish-learning infants participated in an experiment involving a preferential looking task. During each of five training trials per category, infants were presented to one of two novel objects while simultaneously heard two instances of pseudowords with a common morpheme-like segment either at the beginning or the end of the pseudoword (e.g., /tabi/, /babi/, for object 1; or /sato/, /same/, for object 2). Children were then tested in five trials per object. The two trained objects were presented side-by-side while infants heard new pseudowords that followed the pattern of the pseudowords that were heard during training. Results: Results show an effective association between a referent and a group of pseudowords with a repeating morpheme-like segment. This association is observed both with beginning and final segments. Conclusions: These findings show infants’ basic abilities for the processing of morphology at an earlier age than it has been suggested. The potential influence of morphologically rich languages such as Spanish is considered.(AU)

Antecedentes y objetivo: Durante la adquisición de la morfología, los niños deben aprender a segmentar y a asociar los morfemas de una palabra a su significado o función gramatical, a pesar de la compleja variabilidad morfológica que los niños pueden encontrar en su entorno lingüístico. El presente estudio explora la capacidad de los bebés de 9 a 12 meses para segmentar una sílaba tipo morfema de varias palabras y asociarla a un objeto novedoso. Participantes y método: Treinta y nueve bebés aprendices del español participaron en un experimento que implicaba una tarea de preferencia de mirada. Se realizaron cinco ensayos de entrenamiento por categoría, en los que se presentaba uno de dos objetos novedosos, mientras que simultáneamente escuchaban dos instancias de palabras con un segmento tipo morfema común (e.g., /tabi/, /babi/, para el objeto 1, o /sato/, /same/, para el objeto 2). Luego, los niños fueron evaluados en cinco ensayos de prueba por categoría. Los dos objetos del entrenamiento aparecían, uno al lado del otro, mientras escuchaban nuevas palabras que seguían el patrón de las palabras escuchadas durante el entrenamiento. Resultados: Los resultados muestran una asociación efectiva entre un referente y un grupo de palabras con un segmento repetitivo similar a un morfema. Conclusiones: Estos hallazgos muestran las habilidades básicas de los bebés para el procesamiento de la morfología a una edad más temprana de lo que se había sugerido. Se considera la potencial influencia de lenguas morfológicamente ricas, como el español.(AU)

Can speech perception deficits cause phonological impairments? Evidence from short-term memory for ambiguous speech.

Poor performance on phonological tasks is characteristic of neurodevelopmental language disorders (dyslexia and/or developmental language disorder). Perceptual deficit accounts attribute phonological dysfunction to lower-level deficits in speech-sound processing. However, a causal pathway from speech perception to phonological performance has not been established. We assessed this relationship in typical adults by experimentally disrupting speech-sound discrimination in a phonological short-term memory (pSTM) task. We used an automated audio-morphing method (Rogers & Davis, 2017) to create ambiguous intermediate syllables between 16 letter name-letter name ("B"-"P") and letter name-word ("B"-"we") pairs. High- and low-ambiguity syllables were used in a pSTM task in which participants (N = 36) recalled six- and eight-letter name sequences. Low-ambiguity sequences were better recalled than high-ambiguity sequences, for letter name-letter name but not letter name-word morphed syllables. A further experiment replicated this ambiguity cost (N = 26), but failed to show retroactive or prospective effects for mixed high- and low-ambiguity sequences, in contrast to pSTM findings for speech-in-noise (SiN; Guang et al., 2020; Rabbitt, 1968). These experiments show that ambiguous speech sounds impair pSTM, via a different mechanism to SiN recall. We further show that the effect of ambiguous speech on recall is context-specific, limited, and does not transfer to recall of nonconfusable items. This indicates that speech perception deficits are not a plausible cause of pSTM difficulties in language disorders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Phonological awareness training and phonological therapy approaches for specific language impairment children with speech sound disorders: a comparative outcome study.

PURPOSE: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) might present with speech sound disorder (SSD) and phonological awareness (PA) deficits which put them at risk of potential reading problems. This work aimed to organize an intervention program in Arabic for phonological training and to assess the effect of PA training versus the phonological therapy (PT) for children with SLI and SSD. METHODS: The study was carried out on 60 children with comorbid SLI and SSD, aged 5-7 years. Children were equally divided into two groups; each group received language therapy combined with (PT or PA training). Measures of language development, phonological output, and PA were taken before therapy and at 4 month post-therapy for all children. RESULTS: The two therapy groups made nearly the same amount of progress in the development of language and phonological production, with no significant differences regarding language age and percent of consonants correct (PCC). The PA training group progressed more on the PA skills than children who received PT over the same time. CONCLUSIONS: PA training could facilitate the development of phonological skills by targeting the child's awareness of phonemes and improving the production of sound patterns.

Speech and phonological impairment across Alzheimer's disease severity.

INTRODUCTION: Phonetic-phonological impairments have been described in dementia due to Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, whether the likely phonological-linguistic changes progress with the evolution of the disease or whether phonetic-motor manifestations occur in all three stages of AD (mild, moderate, and severe) has not yet been clarified. Thus, the aim of this study was to verify whether phonological-linguistic and phonetic-motor speech manifestations occur in the mild, moderate, and severe stages of AD. METHODS: Thirty participants in each stage of probable AD (mild, moderate, and severe) and 30 healthy older adults underwent cognitive, instrumental activities of daily living and phonetic-phonological assessments. Phonetic-phonological manifestations were classified into three types: likely phonetic-motor, likely phonological-linguistic, and manifestations that may occur in disorders of both phonetic and phonological origin. RESULTS: The manifestations analyzed in this study occurred rarely. The manifestations that may occur in disorders of both phonetic and phonological origin were the most common in all stages of the disease. The likely phonetic-motor manifestations emerged during the mild stage of the disease (distortions, prolonged intersegment duration, and vowel prolongations), while the likely phonological-linguistic manifestations were present mainly in the moderate (substitutions and attempts at the word level) and severe stages (substitutions, attempts at the word level, self-corrections, and anticipations). The occurrence of phonetic-phonological manifestations increased with disease progression. CONCLUSIONS: The type of phonological and phonetic manifestations in the individuals with AD differed according to the dementia stage and were statistically more frequent as dementia worsened.

Heterogeneity of short-term memory deficits in children with dyslexia.

Many studies have highlighted short-term memory (STM) impairment in dyslexic individuals. Several studies showed deficits for both item and serial order aspects of verbal STM in dyslexic individuals. These group-based studies, however, do not inform us about the prevalence of these deficits and, importantly, their potential heterogeneity at the individual level. The present study examined both group-level and individual STM profiles in dyslexic and age-matched non-dyslexic children. While confirming previous group-based results of both item and serial order STM deficits, individual analyses indicated two distinct profiles: one profile was associated with verbal item STM and phonological impairment while another profile showed selective serial STM deficits in both verbal and visual domains. Our results highlight the need for practitioners to consider the heterogeneous nature of STM impairment in dyslexia and to adapt STM and reading treatment strategies accordingly.

Automated Vowel Articulation Analysis in Connected Speech Among Progressive Neurological Diseases, Dysarthria Types, and Dysarthria Severities.

PURPOSE: Although articulatory impairment represents distinct speech characteristics in most neurological diseases affecting movement, methods allowing automated assessments of articulation deficits from the connected speech are scarce. This study aimed to design a fully automated method for analyzing dysarthria-related vowel articulation impairment and estimate its sensitivity in a broad range of neurological diseases and various types and severities of dysarthria. METHOD: Unconstrained monologue and reading passages were acquired from 459 speakers, including 306 healthy controls and 153 neurological patients. The algorithm utilized a formant tracker in combination with a phoneme recognizer and subsequent signal processing analysis. RESULTS: Articulatory undershoot of vowels was presented in a broad spectrum of progressive neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease, progressive supranuclear palsy, multiple-system atrophy, Huntington's disease, essential tremor, cerebellar ataxia, multiple sclerosis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, as well as in related dysarthria subtypes including hypokinetic, hyperkinetic, ataxic, spastic, flaccid, and their mixed variants. Formant ratios showed a higher sensitivity to vowel deficits than vowel space area. First formants of corner vowels were significantly lower for multiple-system atrophy than cerebellar ataxia. Second formants of vowels /a/ and /i/ were lower in ataxic compared to spastic dysarthria. Discriminant analysis showed a classification score of up to 41.0% for disease type, 39.3% for dysarthria type, and 49.2% for dysarthria severity. Algorithm accuracy reached an F-score of 0.77. CONCLUSIONS: Distinctive vowel articulation alterations reflect underlying pathophysiology in neurological diseases. Objective acoustic analysis of vowel articulation has the potential to provide a universal method to screen motor speech disorders. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23681529.

Achieving the next level in cleft speech intervention: A protocol of a randomized sham-controlled trial to provide guidelines for a personalized approach in children with cleft palate.

BACKGROUND: Compensatory cleft speech disorders can severely impact speech understandability and speech acceptability. Speech intervention is necessary to eliminate these disorders. There is, however, currently no consensus on the most effective speech therapy approach to eliminate the different subtypes of compensatory cleft speech disorders. AIMS: To compare the immediate, short- and long-term effects of three well-defined speech intervention approaches (i.e., a motor-phonetic approach, a linguistic-phonological approach and a combined phonetic-phonological approach) on the speech and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in Belgian Dutch-speaking children with cleft palate with or without cleft lip (CP±L) and different subtypes of compensatory speech disorders (i.e., anterior oral cleft speech characteristics (CSCs), posterior oral CSCs or non-oral CSCs). Besides, the perceived acceptability of these three speech intervention approaches will be investigated from the perspectives of caregivers and children with a CP±L. METHODS & PROCEDURES: A two-centre longitudinal randomized sham-controlled trial was used. Children were randomly assigned to one of the three intervention programmes and received 10 h of speech intervention divided over 2 weeks. Block randomization was used, stratified by age and gender. Primary outcome measures included perceptual speech outcomes. Secondary outcome measures included patient-reported outcomes. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: The results of this trial will provide speech-language pathologists evidence-based guidelines to better tailor intervention approaches to the specific needs of a child with a defined compensatory speech disorder. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject Speech therapy approaches to address cleft palate speech disorders are broadly divided into two categories: motor-phonetic interventions and linguistic-phonological interventions. Some limited evidence demonstrated the positive effects of these approaches in eliminating compensatory cleft speech disorders. Different studies have reported inter-individual variation, suggesting that one child may benefit more from a particular intervention approach than the other child. Perhaps this variation can be attributed to the specific subtype of compensatory speech disorder (i.e., anterior oral CSC, posterior oral CSC or non-oral CSC). What this paper adds to existing knowledge This paper describes a randomized sham-controlled trial that compared the immediate, short- and long-term effects of three well-defined speech intervention approaches (i.e., a motor-phonetic approach, a linguistic-phonological approach and a combined phonetic-phonological approach) on the speech and HRQoL in Belgian Dutch-speaking children with CP±L and different subtypes of compensatory cleft speech disorders (i.e., anterior oral CSCs, posterior oral CSCs or non-oral CSCs) measured by perceptual and psychosocial outcome measures. Besides, the experienced acceptability of these three speech intervention approaches were investigated from the perspectives of caregivers and children. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? This project provides evidence-based knowledge on patient-tailored cleft speech intervention considering both scientific evidence and the perspectives of caregivers and children. The results aid SLPs in better tailoring intervention approaches to the needs of a child with a specific type of compensatory cleft speech disorder.

[Study on brain mechanism of rehabilitation training of articulation disorder in cleft lip and palate patients based on functional magnetic resonance imaging].

The cleft lip and palate (CLP) is one of the most common craniofacial malformations in humans. We collected functional magnetic resonance data of 23 CLP patients before rehabilitation training (Bclp) and 23 CLP patients after rehabilitation training (Aclp), who were performing Chinese character pronunciation tasks, and performed brain activation analysis to explore the changes of brain mechanism in CLP patients after articulation disorder rehabilitation training. The study found that Aclp group had significant activation in the motor cortex, Broca area, Wernicke area and cerebellum. While the Bclp group had weak activation in the motor cortex with a small activation range. By comparing the differences and co-activated brain regions between the two groups, we found that rehabilitation training increased the activity level of negatively activated brain areas (cerebellum, left motor area, Wernicke area, etc.) to a positive level. At the same time, the activity level of weakly activated brain areas (right motor area, Broca area, etc.) was also increased. Rehabilitation training promoted the activity level of articulation-related brain regions. So that the activation intensity of articulation-related brain regions can be used as a quantifiable objective evaluation index to evaluate the effect of rehabilitation training, which is of great significance for the formulation of rehabilitation training programs.

Interpretation of Misarticulated Words by Children With and Without Speech Sound Disorders.

PURPOSE: Children with speech sound disorders (SSDs) often struggle with forming early representations for phonemes and words, which could impact their speech production as well as their lexical access. This difficulty may limit their ability to accurately identify nonexemplar productions of words, such as developmental misarticulations produced by peers. The purpose of this study was to examine word interpretation of misarticulated words by children with SSD. METHOD: Seventeen monolingual English-speaking preschoolers were assessed for language, phonological processing, and articulation skills. Participants heard three types of words: accurate productions (e.g., "leaf"), common misarticulated productions (e.g., "weaf"), uncommon misarticulated productions (e.g., "yeaf"), and unrelated nonwords (e.g., "gim"). Children were presented with these words aurally and asked to select the picture that matched what they heard-either a real object or a blank square. RESULTS: The proportion of real object picture selections was calculated for each word type and compared within subjects. The findings indicate that children with SSD reliably associated common misarticulated words with pictured objects more frequently than they did in the uncommon misarticulation condition. These results were compared between subjects to typically developing (TD) peers' responses using a one-way analysis of variance. The results indicate that children with SSD identified common substitutions as real object pictures more often than TD peers. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggest that children with SSD are sensitive to the commonness of misarticulations; however, they accept common substitutions as real object pictures significantly more often than TD peers.

Perceptual measurement of articulatory goodness in young children: Relationships with age, speech sound acquisition, and intelligibility.

Speech language pathologists regularly use perceptual methods in clinical practice to assess children's speech. In this study, we examined relationships between measures of speech intelligibility, clinical articulation test results, age, and perceptual ratings of articulatory goodness for children. We also examined the extent to which established measures of intelligibility and clinical articulation test results predicted articulatory goodness ratings, and whether goodness ratings were influenced by intelligibility. A sample of 164 (30-47 months) typically developing children provided speech samples and completed a standardised articulation test. Single word intelligibility scores and ratings of articulatory goodness were gathered from 328 naïve listeners; scores on a standardised articulation test were obtained from each child. Bivariate Pearson correlation, linear regression, and linear mixed effects modelling were used for analysis. Results showed that articulatory goodness ratings had the highest correlation with intelligibility, followed by age, followed by articulation score. Age and clinical articulation scores were both significant predictors of goodness ratings, but articulation scores made only a small contribution to prediction. Articulatory goodness ratings were substantially lower for unintelligible words compared to intelligible words, but articulatory goodness scores increased with age at the same rate for unintelligible and intelligible words. Perceptual ratings of articulatory goodness are sensitive to developmental changes in speech production (regardless of intelligibility) and yield a different kind of information than clinical articulation scores from standardised measures.

Phonological Awareness Assessment Test (PACOF) for Pre-school Children: Evidence of Validity and Reliability / El test de evaluación de la conciencia fonológica (PACOF) para niños de preescolar: pruebas de validez y fiabilidad

Phonological awareness problems have been identified as predictors of learning difficulties with reading and writing in alphabetic languages. The objective of this study is to present an analysis of the psychometric properties of the Phonological Awareness Assessment Test (PACOF), a computer-based test for assessing syllable, phoneme, and intra-syllable awareness in pre-schoolers. Two studies were conducted to collect: (1) evidence of concurrent validity and reliability (N = 30) and (2) evidence of predictive validity (N = 52). Significant correlations between the scores in PACOF and a different test of phonological awareness were found. Regarding reliability, test-retest results indicated a high stability in the scores over time. Concerning predictive validity, the results revealed that scores on the PACOF and on each of its three sub-scales obtained at the end of preschool predict future reading and writing performance. These findings suggest that the test is a reliable and valid measure to assess phonological awareness in pre-schoolers.(AU)

Se ha comprobado que los problemas de conciencia fonológica predicen las dificultades de aprendizaje de la lectura y la escritura en lenguas alfabéticas. El objetivo de este estudio es analizar las propiedades psicométricas del Test de Evaluación de la Conciencia Fonológica (PACOF), una prueba informatizada para evaluar la conciencia silábica, fonética e intrasilábica en niños de preescolar. Se realizaron dos estudios para recoger: (1) pruebas de fiabilidad y validez concurrente (N = 30) y (2) de validez predictiva (N = 52). Se encontró correlación significativa entre las puntuaciones en el PACOF y otra prueba estandarizada de conciencia fonológica. En cuanto a la fiabilidad, los resultados del test-retest destacan una gran estabilidad en las puntuaciones a lo largo del tiempo. Por lo que respecta a la validez predictiva, los resultados revelaron que las puntuaciones en el PACOF y en cada una de sus tres subescalas obtenidas al final de preescolar predicen el futuro rendimiento en lectura y escritura. Estos resultados sugieren que la prueba es una medida fiable y válida para evaluar la conciencia fonológica en niños de preescolar.(AU)

Positional asymmetries in consonant production and intelligibility in dysarthric speech.

Consonant production errors are common in dysarthric speech, but not all consonants are affected to the same extent. Currently, only limited knowledge exists regarding whether different positional allophones are affected to varying degrees in dysarthric speech. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of consonants' position-in-words on consonant production accuracy and their relevance to speech intelligibility. To this end, the percentage of correctly articulated consonants was analyzed with respect to position-in-words, manner of articulation, and speakers' overall intelligibility in dysarthric speech secondary to cerebral palsy. Results revealed that consonants were generally more accurate in initial positions than other positions, and when they were singletons rather than clusters. However, fricatives, a category commonly noted for frequent misarticulations, exhibited no significant positional effects, indicating that fricatives were affected to a similar degree across all word positions. In addition, positional asymmetry manifested to a greater degree as intelligibility decreased. Finally, the strength of the relationship between consonant production accuracy and intelligibility varied depending on positions-in-words, with strong correlations in the medial and final cluster positions but no significant correlation for fricatives in the initial and final singleton positions. The correlation was markedly low for the initial consonants, possibly due to the resistance of initial consonants to production errors. The positional asymmetry found in this study necessitates more research on non-initial consonants and clusters for their potential in improving consonant production and speech intelligibility as a part of dysarthria management.

Designing a cyber-physical robotic platform to assist speech-language pathologists.

This research focused on the development of a cyber-physical robotic platform to assist speech-language pathologists who are related to articulation disorders in education environments. The first goal was the design and development of the system. The second goal was the qualitative initial validation of the platform with robotics and mobile device functionalities drawing on the participation of real patients and speech-language pathologists (SLP). The research method is based on qualitative data. The first phase was the application of engineering requirements and agile techniques to build the robotic system. The second phase was to execute test sessions of the robotic platform with speech-language pathologists supervision and analyzing the experience of real male and female patients collecting data by in-depth interviews and video recordings at Heredia Special Education Center in Costa Rica. The practical approach of the cyber-physical platform has preliminarily support. Testing with SLPs and 3 other older individuals suggests that it may become a useful tool to assist professionals in the treatment of some types of articulation disorders. The time savings and data collection possibilities should be included in future investigations of efficacy.

Classification of accurate and misarticulated /ɑr/ for ultrasound biofeedback using tongue part displacement trajectories.

Ultrasound biofeedback therapy (UBT), which incorporates real-time imaging of tongue articulation, has demonstrated generally positive speech remediation outcomes for individuals with residual speech sound disorder (RSSD). However, UBT requires high attentional demands and may therefore benefit from a simplified display of articulation targets that are easily interpretable and can be compared to real-time articulation. Identifying such targets requires automatic quantification and analysis of movement features relevant to accurate speech production. Our image-analysis program TonguePART automatically quantifies tongue movement as tongue part displacement trajectories from midsagittal ultrasound videos of the tongue, with real-time capability. The present study uses such displacement trajectories to compare accurate and misarticulated American-English rhotic /ɑr/ productions from 40 children, with degree of accuracy determined by auditory perceptual ratings. To identify relevant features of accurate articulation, support vector machine (SVM) classifiers were trained and evaluated on several candidate data representations. Classification accuracy was up to 85%, indicating that quantification of tongue part displacement trajectories captured tongue articulation characteristics that distinguish accurate from misarticulated production of /ɑr/. Regression models for perceptual ratings were also compared. The simplest data representation that retained high predictive ability, demonstrated by high classification accuracy and strong correlation between observed and predicted ratings, was displacements at the midpoint of /r/ relative to /ɑ/ for the tongue dorsum and blade. This indicates that movements of the dorsum and blade are especially relevant to accurate production of /r/, suggesting that a predictive parameter and biofeedback target based on this data representation may be usable for simplified UBT.

Quantifying articulatory impairments in neurodegenerative motor diseases: A scoping review and meta-analysis of interpretable acoustic features.

PURPOSE: Neurodegenerative motor diseases (NMDs) have devastating effects on the lives of patients and their loved ones, in part due to the impact of neurologic abnormalities on speech, which significantly limits functional communication. Clinical speech researchers have thus spent decades investigating speech features in populations suffering from NMDs. Features of impaired articulatory function are of particular interest given their detrimental impact on intelligibility, their ability to encode a variety of distinct movement disorders, and their potential as diagnostic indicators of neurodegenerative diseases. The objectives of this scoping review were to identify (1) which components of articulation (i.e. coordination, consistency, speed, precision, and repetition rate) are the most represented in the acoustic literature on NMDs; (2) which acoustic articulatory features demonstrate the most potential for detecting speech motor dysfunction in NMDs; and (3) which articulatory components are the most impaired within each NMD. METHOD: This review examined literature published between 1976 and 2020. Studies were identified from six electronic databases using predefined key search terms. The first research objective was addressed using a frequency count of studies investigating each articulatory component, while the second and third objectives were addressed using meta-analyses. RESULT: Findings from 126 studies revealed a considerable emphasis on articulatory precision. Of the 24 features included in the meta-analyses, vowel dispersion/distance and stop gap duration exhibited the largest effects when comparing the NMD population to controls. The meta-analyses also revealed divergent patterns of articulatory performance across disease types, providing evidence of unique profiles of articulatory impairment. CONCLUSION: This review illustrates the current state of the literature on acoustic articulatory features in NMDs. By highlighting the areas of need within each articulatory component and disease group, this work provides a foundation on which clinical researchers, speech scientists, neurologists, and computer science engineers can develop research questions that will both broaden and deepen the understanding of articulatory impairments in NMDs.

Study on brain mechanism of rehabilitation training of articulation disorder in cleft lip and palate patients based on functional magnetic resonance imaging / 生物医学工程学杂志

The cleft lip and palate (CLP) is one of the most common craniofacial malformations in humans. We collected functional magnetic resonance data of 23 CLP patients before rehabilitation training (Bclp) and 23 CLP patients after rehabilitation training (Aclp), who were performing Chinese character pronunciation tasks, and performed brain activation analysis to explore the changes of brain mechanism in CLP patients after articulation disorder rehabilitation training. The study found that Aclp group had significant activation in the motor cortex, Broca area, Wernicke area and cerebellum. While the Bclp group had weak activation in the motor cortex with a small activation range. By comparing the differences and co-activated brain regions between the two groups, we found that rehabilitation training increased the activity level of negatively activated brain areas (cerebellum, left motor area, Wernicke area, etc.) to a positive level. At the same time, the activity level of weakly activated brain areas (right motor area, Broca area, etc.) was also increased. Rehabilitation training promoted the activity level of articulation-related brain regions. So that the activation intensity of articulation-related brain regions can be used as a quantifiable objective evaluation index to evaluate the effect of rehabilitation training, which is of great significance for the formulation of rehabilitation training programs.

Validación de un test de detección temprana de dificultades de la lectoescritura en Ecuador. Validación de un test de riesgo de dificultades / Validation of a test for early detection of literacy difficulties in Ecuador. Validation of a hardship risk test

Introducción: Las dificultades del aprendizaje son las alteraciones de mayor presencia en las aulas escolares y sus indicadores pueden diagnosticarse y prevenirse desde edades tempranas. El objetivo de esta investigación fue validar el Test para la detección temprana de las dificultades en el aprendizaje de la lectura y escritura. Métodos: El enfoque de la investigación fue cuantitativo, descriptivo y de corte transversal. Se utilizó la validez de constructo acorde con la propuesta original del test y de fiabilidad a través del Alpha de Cronbach en una muestra de 501 niños ecuatorianos de cuatro años. Resultados: La validación del instrumento evidencia una moderada correlación entre las sub-tareas y alta correlación entre las sub-tareas y el puntaje total. La fiabilidad es buena, α= 0.71, muy próxima a la de la población española α= 0.73. Por lo que, la prueba puede ser utilizada en el contexto ecuatoriano en su versión original, adecuando en las instrucciones dos palabras a la realidad lingüística del país y para la calificación los puntos de corte de dificultad. Conclusión: Considerando su valor y fácil aplicación se recomienda el uso de la prueba de lectura en contextos educativos y de salud.

Introduction: Learning difficulties are the alterations with the most significant presence in school classrooms, and their indicators can be diagnosed and prevented early. This research aimed to validate the test for the early detection of difficulties in learning to read and write. Methods: The research approach was quantitative, descriptive, and cross-sectional. Construct validity was used according to the original proposal of the test and reliability through Cronbach's alpha in a sample of 501 four-year-old Ecuadorian children. Results: The validation of the instrument shows a moderate correlation between the subtasks and a high correlation between the subtasks and the total score. The reliability is good, α = 0.71, very close to that of the Spanish population α = 0.73. Therefore, the test can be used in the Ecuadorian context in its original version, adapting two words in the instructions to the linguistic reality of the country and for the qualification of the cutoff points of difficulty. Conclusion: With the easy application of the "test of reading" in 4-year-old children, the authors recommended its application for the identification of dyslexia and phonological processing deficits in school children in Ecuador. The reading test's validity allows its application at a regional level.

Construcción de mapas articulatorios para la detección automática de la enfermedad de Parkinson por medio de la voz / Building articulatory maps for the automatic detection of Parkinson's disease from speech

Antecedentes y objetivo: Las investigaciones recientes han mostrado que el análisis de las señales de habla provee información relevante para el apoyo diagnóstico y monitoreo de pacientes con enfermedad de Parkinson (EP). En este trabajo se propone una metodología para la construcción de mapas articulatorios basados en información articulatoria y fonológica del habla tal que permita la clasificación automática de personas con EP vs. personas asintomáticas y que además logre una fácil visualización e interpretación de los resultados. Materiales y métodos: Se consideraron 100 grabaciones de audio de un texto leído que contiene todos los sonidos del español hablado en Colombia. Se extrajeron características articulatorias y además fonológicas a través de dos herramientas: PhonVoc y Phonet. Luego, a partir del alineamiento forzado se obtuvieron los tiempos de ocurrencia de los fonemas para agrupar las clases fonológicas. Posteriormente se implementaron dos clasificadores, máquinas de soporte vectorial y árboles aleatorios. Resultados: Los experimentos muestran un acierto de hasta 90% en la clasificación de pacientes vs. asintomáticos con la clase fonológica «Vocales» y aciertos superiores al 80% para las clases «Nasales», «Fricativas sordas» y «Oclusivas sonoras». Para facilitar la interpretación visual de los resultados se construyeron mapas articulatorios usando mezclas de modelos Gaussianos (GMMs, por las siglas en inglés de Gaussian Mixture Models) que agruparon las clases fonológicas en dos dimensiones. Conclusiones: La metodología propuesta es una alternativa adecuada tanto para la detección automática de la EP como para la evaluación del déficit articulatorio en los fonemas contenidos en las clases fonológicas.(AU)

Background and objectives: Recent studies have shown that speech analysis provides relevant information to support the diagnosis and monitoring of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease (PD). In this work a methodology is proposed to create articulatory maps based on articulatory and phonological information such that allow a clear and interpretable visualization of the results. Materials and methods: A total of 100 speakers were recorded while reading a text with 36 words that includes all phonemes of the Colombian Spanish. Phonological features are extracted with two toolkits: PhonVoc and Phonet. Forced alignment is used to obtained the time-stamps per phoneme. Support vector machines and random forests are used to classify between PD patients and non-symptomatic subjects. Results: Accuracies of up to 90% are observed when the phonological class «Vowels» is considered and also accuracies above 80% are found for «Nasals», «Voiceless ficatives» and «Voiced Stop». Articulatory maps are created based on Gaussian mixture models with the aim to enable the interpretation of results. Conclusions: The proposed methodology is suitable for the automatic detection of PD and also to assess possible articulatory deficits in the production of specific phonological classes.(AU)