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Effect Of Rate Reduction On Speech Intelligibility In Individuals With Dysarthria, Zachary Hall

LSU Master's Theses

This study examined how speech rate reduction affects speech intelligibility in speakers with dysarthria associated with diverse neurological conditions. Three speakers with dysarthria were recorded reading a paragraph using conversational and reduced speech rates. The samples of both the conversational and slow rates were digitally edited to include silent pauses at the speakers’ natural breaks. The samples were then segmented into breath group utterances. Five samples with the greatest rate reductions from each speaker were used as stimuli, each presented in four rate conditions: conversational, slow, synthesized conversational, and synthesized slow. The listeners rated the intelligibility of 60 samples using …