Speech and Hearing Science Commons^™

Exploring The Temporal Variability Of Speech Intensity, Speech Intelligibility, And Communicative Participation In Individuals With Hypophonia And Parkinson’S Disease, Cynthia Mancinelli

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Hypophonia, or reduced speech intensity, is frequently observed in individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). This speech deficit can impact speech intelligibility and communicative participation. However, there is little empirical evidence exploring the day-to-day variability of speech and communicative participation in individuals with PD. The purpose of this study is to investigate the temporal variability of acoustic and perceptual speech measures and psychosocial measures in individuals with hypophonia and PD. Additionally, this study seeks to examine the relationships among measures of speech intensity, speech intelligibility, self- and proxy-rated communicative participation, demographic factors, and non-speech factors. Twenty-three participants with PD, 23 primary …

Behavioural And Objective Assessment Of Binaural Hearing In Adult Listeners With Acquired Unilateral Conductive Hearing Loss Before And After Middle Ear Surgery, Parvaneh Abbasalipour

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In normally hearing listeners, binaural hearing relies on symmetrical input from the two ears. Previous studies on human listeners have assessed the effect of induced unilateral conductive hearing loss (UCHL) during adulthood via earplugging. These experiments indicated initial difficulty in sound localization followed by gradual improvement due to adaptation to the perturbed binaural cues. The limited duration of earplug use does not represent the consequences of chronic UCHL secondary to disease. Furthermore, there is insufficient information regarding the adaptation of binaural hearing abilities after treatment of late-onset UCHL.

The current study assessed the binaural hearing abilities of adult listeners with …

Changes In Speech Intelligibility And Acoustic Distinctiveness Along A Speech Rate Continuum In Parkinson’S Disease, Thea Knowles

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Asking a person to speak slowly is a common technique in speech therapy for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Slowed speaking rates are thought to bring about changes in speech production that make it easier for people with speech impairments associated with PD to be understood, but this is not always the case. Furthermore, research suggests that using faster speech does not necessarily lead to decreases in speech intelligibility for some people with PD. Most studies of rate modification in PD have only included one or two rate adjustments to investigate the relationship between speech rate, intelligibility, and acoustic aspects …

Multi-Frequency Electrophysiological Estimates Of Auditory Temporal Acuity, Negar Ahzan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Auditory temporal acuity, a listener’s ability to discriminate rapid changes in the envelope of an auditory signal over time, is crucial for understanding speech. Electrophysiological measurement of auditory temporal acuity is beneficial when we cannot achieve reliable behavioural responses. The envelope following response (EFR) evoked by a changing (swept) amplitude-modulated (AM) stimulus is significantly correlated with behavioural measures of temporal acuity in humans. Previous research using AM broadband noise carriers may have been affected by the cancellation of evoked potentials at the measurement electrodes due to out-of-phase interference of parallel responses initiated at different times due to cochlear travelling wave …

Amplitude Modulation Perception In Children With Auditory Processing Disorder, Winnie Ly

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Children with developmental delays in auditory processing are more prone to experience difficulty in a classroom setting. Temporal cues are reported to be important for speech understanding in noisy and quiet conditions. One method to assess the ability to discriminate temporal cues is the amplitude modulation task. The purpose of this thesis was to examine amplitude modulation perception in listeners (children with auditory processing disorder (APD), typically developing children and adults) through an adaptive amplitude modulation task, estimation of psychometric functions for this task study and verification of the amplitude modulation task on a portable device (iPaas-based Application Suite …