Speech and Hearing Science Commons^™

Genetics Of Peripheral Vestibular Dysfunction: Lessons From Mutant Mouse Strains, Sherri M. Jones, Timothy A. Jones

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Background

A considerable amount of research has been published about genetic hearing impairment. Fifty to sixty percent of hearing loss is thought to have a genetic cause. Genes may also play a significant role in acquired hearing loss due to aging, noise exposure, or ototoxic medications. Between 1995 and 2012, over 100 causative genes have been identified for syndromic and nonsyndromic forms of hereditary hearing loss (see Hereditary Hearing Loss Homepage http://hereditaryhearingloss.org). Mouse models have been extremely valuable in facilitating the discovery of hearing loss genes, and in understanding inner ear pathology due to genetic mutations or elucidating fundamental mechanisms …

Supporting Narrative Retells For People With Aphasia Using Augmentative And Alternative Communication: Photographs Or Line Drawings? Text Or No Text?, Julie Griffith, Aimee R. Dietz, Kristy S.E. Weissling

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine how the interface design of an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device influences the communication behaviors of people with aphasia during a narrative retell task.

Method: A case-series design was used. Four narratives were created on an AAC device with combinations of personally relevant (PR) photographs, line drawings (LDs), and text for each participant. The narrative retells were analyzed to describe the expressive modality units (EMUs) used, trouble sources experienced, and whether trouble sources were repaired. The researchers also explored the participants’ perceived helpfulness of the interface features.

Results: The participants …

The Impact Of Interface Design During An Initial High-Technology Aac Experience: A Collective Case Study Of People With Aphasia, Aimee R. Dietz, Kristy S.E. Weissling, Julie Griffith, Miechelle L. Mckelvey, Devan Macke

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this collective case study was to describe the communication behaviors of five people with chronic aphasia when they retold personal narratives to an unfamiliar communication partner using four variants of a visual scene display (VSD) interface. The results revealed that spoken language comprised roughly 70% of expressive modality units; variable patterns of use for other modalities emerged. Although inconsistent across participants, several people with aphasia experienced no trouble sources during the retells using VSDs with personally relevant photographs and text boxes. Overall, participants perceived the personally relevant photographs and the text as helpful during the retells. These …

Treating Myofunctional Disorders: A Multiple-Baseline Study Of A New Treatment Using Electropalatography, Alana Mantie-Kozlowski, Kevin M. Pitt

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Purpose: This study assessed the benefit of using electropalatography (EPG) in treatment aimed at habilitating individuals with nonspeech orofacial myofunctional disorders (NSOMD).

Method: The study used a multiple-baseline design across 3 female participants who were referred for an evaluation and possible treatment of their NSOMD. Treatment sessions were 30 min and provided twice weekly. Participant 1 received 8 treatments, Participant 2 received 6 treatments, and Participant 3 received 4 treatments. The patterns of sensor activation produced when participants’ tongues made contact with the electropalate during saliva swallows were compared with the patterns of age-matched peers. Individualized goals were developed on …

Articulatory Distinctiveness Of Vowels And Consonants: A Data-Driven Approach, Jun Wang, Jordan R. Green, Ashok Samal, Yana Yunusova

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Purpose: To quantify the articulatory distinctiveness of 8 major English vowels and 11 English consonants based on tongue and lip movement time series data using a data-driven approach.

Method: Tongue and lip movements of 8 vowels and 11 consonants from 10 healthy talkers were collected. First, classification accuracies were obtained using 2 complementary approaches: (a) Procrustes analysis and (b) a support vector machine. Procrustes distance was then used to measure the articulatory distinctiveness among vowels and consonants. Finally, the distance (distinctiveness) matrices of different vowel pairs and consonant pairs were used to derive articulatory vowel and consonant spaces …

Word Recognition From Continuous Articulatory Movement Time-Series Data Using Symbolic Representations, Jun Wang, Arvind Balasubramanian, Luis Mojica De La Vega, Jordan R. Green, Ashok Samal, Balakrishnan Prabhakaran

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Although still in experimental stage, articulation-based silent speech interfaces may have significant potential for facilitating oral communication in persons with voice and speech problems. An articulation-based silent speech interface converts articulatory movement information to audible words. The complexity of speech production mechanism (e.g., co-articulation) makes the conversion a formidable problem. In this paper, we reported a novel, real-time algorithm for recognizing words from continuous articulatory movements. This approach differed from prior work in that (1) it focused on word-level, rather than phoneme-level; (2) online segmentation and recognition were conducted at the same time; and (3) a symbolic representation (SAX) was …

Individual Articulator's Contribution To Phoneme Production, Jun Wang, Jordan R. Green, Ashok Samal

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Speech sounds are the result of coordinated movements of individual articulators. Understanding each articulator’s role in speech is fundamental not only for understanding how speech is produced, but also for optimizing speech assessments and treatments. In this paper, we studied the individual contributions of six articulators, tongue tip, tongue blade, tongue body front, tongue body back, upper lip, and lower lip to phoneme classification. A total of 3,838 vowel and consonant production samples were collected from eleven native English speakers. The results of speech movement classification using a support vector machine indicated that the tongue encoded significantly more information than …

Personalizing Aac For People With Aphasia: The Role Of Text And Pictures, Aimee R. Dietz, Kristy S.E. Weissling, Julie Griffith, Miechelle L. Mckelvey

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Over time, and with intensive instruction, people with aphasia (PWAs) can learn to use grid-based, categorically organized, high-technology AAC layouts during structured tasks (e.g., Hough & Johnson, 2009). In an effort to reduce the training intensity required to teach PWAs to use AAC; researchers developed visual scene displays (VSDs), designed to complement the residual cognitive and linguistic abilities of PWAs by tapping their intact episodic memory. VSD interfaces incorporate personally relevant (PR) photos, text, and speech output (Dietz, McKelvey, & Beukelman, 2006; Weissling & Beukelman, 2006). VSDs appear to facilitate improved communication success (e.g., McKelvey, Dietz, Hux, Weissling, & Beukelman, …

Electropalatography As An Adjunct To Nonspeech Orofacial Myofunctional Disorder Assessments: A Feasibility Study, Alana Mantie-Kozlowski, Kevin M. Pitt

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to determine if electropalatography (EPG) would be a useful adjunct and feasible option for those conducting clinical assessments of individuals with suspected nonspeech orofacial myofunctional disorders (NSOMD). Three females (two adults, one child) were referred by their orthodontist for assessment of suspected NSOMD. Three adults and one child without NSOMD were recruited for the purpose of evaluating methodological construct, and to provide comparisons for participants with NSOMD. Using EPG, lingual-palatal timing and contact patterns of 105 saliva swallows (45 with NSOMD, 60 without NSOMD) were analyzed by compartmentalizing the sensor display and tracking the …

Supporting Narrative Retells For People With Aphasia Using Aac: Photographs Or Line Drawings? Text Or No Text?, Julie Griffith, Aimee R. Dietz, Kristy S.E. Weissling

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

People with aphasia (PWAs) have demonstrated the ability to learn augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices that employ traditional grid layouts to enhance their communication; however, the process is typically lengthy and yields limited generalization (Fox & Fried-Oken, 2001; Koul & Harding, 1998). In response, researchers have begun to investigate the use of visual scene displays (VSDs) to support the communication interactions of PWAs by capitalizing on their relatively intact episodic memory (Beukelman, Dietz, McKelvey, Hux, & Weissling, in press; Dietz, Beukelman, & McKelvey, 2006a; Dietz, McKelvey, Beukelman, Weissling, & Hux, 2006b; McKelvey, Dietz, Hux, Weissling, & Beukelman, 2007). High-technology …

Whole-Word Recognition From Articulatory Movements For Silent Speech Interfaces, Jun Wang, Ashok Samal, Jordan R. Green, Frank Rudzicz

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Articulation-based silent speech interfaces convert silently produced speech movements into audible words. These systems are still in their experimental stages, but have significant potential for facilitating oral communication in persons with laryngectomy or speech impairments. In this paper, we report the result of a novel, real-time algorithm that recognizes whole-words based on articulatory movements. This approach differs from prior work that has focused primarily on phoneme-level recognition based on articulatory features. On average, our algorithm missed 1.93 words in a sequence of twenty-five words with an average latency of 0.79 seconds for each word prediction using a data set of …

Spatiotemporal Coupling Of The Tongue In Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Mili S. Kuruvilla, Jordan R. Green, Yana Yunusova, Kathy Hanford

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Purpose: The primary aim of the investigation was to identify deficits in spatiotemporal coupling between tongue regions in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The relations between disease-related changes in tongue movement patterns and speech intelligibility were also determined.

Methods: The authors recorded word productions from 11 individuals with ALS with mild, moderate, and severe dysarthria using an x-ray microbeam during word productions. A coupling index based on sliding window covariance was used to determine disease-related changes in the coupling between the tongue regions across each word.

Results: The results indicated decreased spatiotemporal coupling of mid-posterior tongue regions and reduced tongue speed …

Sentence Recognition From Articulatory Movements For Silent Speech Interfaces, Jun Wang, Ashok Samal, Jordan R. Green, Frank Rudzicz

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Recent research has demonstrated the potential of using an articulation-based silent speech interface for command-and-control systems. Such an interface converts articulation to words that can then drive a text-to-speech synthesizer. In this paper, we have proposed a novel near-time algorithm to recognize whole-sentences from continuous tongue and lip movements. Our goal is to assist persons who are aphonic or have a severe motor speech impairment to produce functional speech using their tongue and lips. Our algorithm was tested using a functional sentence data set collected from ten speakers (3012 utterances). The average accuracy was 94.89% with an average latency of …

Augmented Input: The Effect Of Visuographic Supports On The Auditory Comprehension Of People With Chronic Aphasia, Sarah E. Wallace, Aimee R. Dietz, Karen Hux, Kristy S.E. Weissling

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Background: Augmented input (AI), or the use of visuographic images and linguistic supports, is a strategy for facilitating the auditory comprehension of people with chronic aphasia. To date, researchers have not systematically evaluated the effects of various types of AI strategies on auditory comprehension.

Aims: The purpose of the study was to perform an initial evaluation of the changes in auditory comprehension accuracy experienced by people with aphasia when they received one type of AI. Specifically, the authors examined the effect four types of non-personalized visuographic image conditions on the comprehension of people with aphasia when listening to narratives.

Methods …

Endoscopic And Stroboscopic Presentation Of The Larynx In Male-To-Female Transsexual Persons, Derek Palmer, Angela M. Dietsch, Jeff Searl

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Background. Male-to-female transsexual (MFT) persons often attempt to produce a female-sounding voice as part of the transition process. Endoscopic and stroboscopic data about how they accomplish this with an anatomically male larynx are lacking.

Objectives. To describe vocal fold activity in MFT persons producing their feminine voice and identify signs of vocal misuse or hyperfunction in MFT speakers, if any.

Study Design. Prospective, nonrandomized, descriptive study of a convenience sample of MFT persons.

Methods. All MFT persons had endoscopic and stroboscopic procedures completed. Images were rated on a range of parameters by two experienced voice therapists …

Quantifying Articulatory Distinctiveness Of Vowels, Jun Wang, Jordan R. Green, Ashok Samal, David B. Marx

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

The articulatory distinctiveness among vowels has been frequently characterized descriptively based on tongue height and front-back position; however, very few empirical methods have been proposed to characterize vowels based on time-varying articulatory characteristics. Such information is not only needed to improve knowledge about the articulation of vowels but also to determine the contribution of articulatory imprecision to poor speech intelligibility. In this paper, a novel statistical shape analysis was used to derive a vowel space that depicted the quantified articulatory distinctiveness among vowels based on tongue and lip movements. The effectiveness of the approach was supported by vowel classification accuracy …

Feasibility Of Group Voice Therapy For Individuals With Parkinson’S Disease, Jeff Searl, Kristel Wilson, Karen Haring, Angela M. Dietsch, Kelly E. Lyons, Rajesh Pahwa

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Purpose: The primary purpose was to demonstrate the feasibility of executing treatment tasks focused on increasing loudness in a group format for individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). A second purpose was to report preliminary pre-to-post treatment outcomes for individuals with PD immediately after they complete the group program.

Methods: The group intervention is described. Fifteen adults with PD who participated in the group and three clinicians leading the group provided feedback about the execution of the intervention. The participants also provided voice samples and self-ratings of voice handicap once before completing the 8-week voice group and once immediately …

Audibility As A Predictor Of Speech Recognition And Listening Effort, Ryan W. Mccreery

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Two studies were conducted to evaluate how audibility influences speech recognition and measures of working memory in children with normal hearing. Specifically, audibility limitations related to background noise and limited bandwidth were analyzed, as these factors are characteristic of the listening conditions encountered by children with hearing loss who wear hearing aids.

In the first study, speech recognition was measured for 117 children and 18 adults with normal hearing. Stimulus bandwidth and the level of background noise were varied systematically in order to evaluate predictions of audibility based on the Speech Intelligibility Index. Results suggested that children with normal hearing …

Attention Effects On Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions With Contralateral Speech Stimuli, Genaya Kae Timpe

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of attending to a speech stimulus on the amplitude of the distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE). The distortion product otoacoustic emission is a measurement of the activity of the inner ear, specifically the outer hair cells in the ear. The activity of the outer hair cells depends upon the auditory nervous system; when it is stimulated, the outer hair cell activity is modified. Normal outer hair cells will create a large DPOAE amplitude. When a stimulus is presented to the opposite ear, the auditory nervous system acts upon the …