A 36-year-old female with severe spastic dysarthria participated in this study. She received 4 weeks of individual, intensive voice-focused treatment. Voice recordings were conducted at three baseline points, immediately posttreatment, and at a 4-month follow-up. The primary outcome variables were selected acoustic measures of vocal function:…

Purpose: Many children with cerebral palsy (CP) are described as having altered vocal quality. The current study utilizes psychoacoustic measures, namely, low-amplitude (H1*-H2*) and high-amplitude (H1*-A2*) spectral tilt and cepstral peak prominence (CPP), to identify the vocal fold articulation characteristics in this population. Method: Eight…

Purpose: As evidenced by perceptual learning studies involving adult listeners and speakers with dysarthria, adaptation to dysarthric speech is driven by signal predictability (speaker property) and a flexible speech perception system (listener property). Here, we extend adaptation investigations to adolescent populations and examine whether adult…

Purpose: This study examined the effects of Speech Intelligibility Treatment (SIT) on intelligibility and naturalness of narrative speech produced by francophone children with dysarthria due to cerebral palsy. Method: Ten francophone children with dysarthria were randomized to one of two treatments, SIT or Hand-Arm Bimanual Intensive Therapy…

Background: Developmental dysarthria is a motor speech impairment commonly characterized by varying levels of reduced speech intelligibility. The relationship between intelligibility deficits and acoustic vowel space among these individuals has long been noted in the literature, with evidence of vowel centralization (e.g., in English and…

Purpose: Children with dysarthria secondary to cerebral palsy may experience reduced speech intelligibility and diminished communicative participation. However, minimal research has been conducted examining the outcomes of behavioral speech treatments in this population. This study examined the effect of Speech Intelligibility Treatment (SIT), a…