Dataset Information

Protocol for the Connected Speech Transcription of Children with Speech Disorders: An Example from Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

While it is known that connected speech has different features to single-word speech, there are currently few recommendations regarding connected speech transcription. This research therefore aimed to develop a clinically feasible protocol for connected speech transcription. The protocol was then used to assist with description of the connected speech of children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), as little is known about their connected speech characteristics.

Participants and methods

Following a literature review, the Connected Speech Transcription Protocol (CoST-P) was iteratively developed and trialled. The CoST-P was then used to transcribe 50 connected utterances produced by 12 children (aged 6-13 years) with CAS. The characteristics of participants' connected speech were analysed to capture independent and relational analyses.

Results

The CoST-P was developed, trialled, and determined to have adequate reliability and fidelity. The frequency of inter-word segregation (mean = 29) was higher than intra-word segregation (mean = 4). Juncture accuracy was correlated with intelligibility metrics such as percentage of consonants correct.

Conclusion

Connected speech transcription is challenging. The CoST-P may be a useful resource for speech-language pathologists and clinical researchers. Use of the CoST-P assisted in displaying CAS speech characteristics unique to connected speech (e.g., inter-word segregation and juncture).

SUBMITTER: Barrett C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6940559 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Protocol for the Connected Speech Transcription of Children with Speech Disorders: An Example from Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

Barrett Catherine C McCabe Patricia P Masso Sarah S Preston Jonathan J

Folia phoniatrica et logopaedica : official organ of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP) 20190703 2

<h4>Objective</h4>While it is known that connected speech has different features to single-word speech, there are currently few recommendations regarding connected speech transcription. This research therefore aimed to develop a clinically feasible protocol for connected speech transcription. The protocol was then used to assist with description of the connected speech of children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), as little is known about their connected speech characteristics.<h4>Particip ...[more]

PMID: 31269497

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Project description:PurposeMuch of the research literature on childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) has focused on understanding, diagnosing, and treating the impairment, rather than examining its functional effect on children's daily lives. This study focuses on the Personal Factors component of the World Health Organization International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health-Children and Youth Version Framework. Specifically, the purpose was to examine the self-reported communication attitudes of children with CAS.MethodTwo validated communication attitude questionnaires were administered to 12 children with CAS enrolled in an intensive speech-focused intervention (age range: 4-10 years old). Children's scores were compared to the questionnaires' typically developing norms. Descriptive analyses explored relationships between communication attitude and CAS severity, caregiver perceptions of communicative participation, frustration ratings during therapy, and change in communication attitude over a brief time.ResultsOlder (ages 6-10 years) but not younger (ages 4-5;11 [years;months]) children with CAS were more likely to have negative attitudes about their speech. No clear relationships were observed between communication attitudes and caregiver perceptions of communicative participation; small positive relationships were observed between communication attitude and frustration during therapy. For the younger children, there was also a relationship with CAS severity. For most children, no change in communication attitude was observed over a brief period, though one child appeared to develop more negative and one appeared to develop more positive attitudes.ConclusionsThese initial findings suggest that older children with CAS may be at greater risk for negative communication attitudes than their peers without CAS. The findings also highlight the need to include more child self-report measures in research. Further implications for CAS assessment and intervention are discussed.Supplemental materialhttps://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21834432.

Project description:PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate the association between perceived single-word speech severity and intelligibility in children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), with and without comorbid language impairment (LI), and to investigate the contribution of different CAS signs to perceived single-word speech severity and single-word intelligibility.MethodThirty children with CAS, 18 with comorbid LI, completed the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation-Second Edition (GFTA-2). Trained judges coded children's responses for signs of CAS and percent phonemes correct. Nine listeners, blind to diagnoses, rated speech severity using a visual analog scale. Intelligibility was assessed by comparing listeners' orthographic transcriptions of children's responses to target responses.ResultsMeasures of speech severity (GFTA-2 standard score, number of unique CAS signs, total CAS signs, and mean severity rating) were significantly correlated with measures of intelligibility (GFTA-2 raw score, percent phonemes correct, and mean intelligibility score). Speech severity and intelligibility did not differ significantly between children with and without LI. Only consonant errors contributed significant variability to speech severity. Consonant errors and stress errors contributed significant variability to intelligibility.ConclusionsFindings suggest that visual analog scale ratings are a valid and convenient measure of single-word speech severity and that GFTA-2 raw score is an equally convenient measure of single-word intelligibility. The result that consonant errors were by far the major contributor to single-word speech severity and intelligibility in children with CAS, with stress errors also making a small contribution to intelligibility, suggests that consonant accuracy and appropriate lexical stress should be prime therapeutic targets for these children in the context of treatment addressing motor planning/programming, self-monitoring, and self-correcting.Supplemental materialhttps://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19119350.

Project description:Language assessment has a crucial role in the clinical diagnosis of several neurodegenerative diseases. The analysis of extended speech production is a precious source of information encompassing the phonetic, phonological, lexico-semantic, morpho-syntactic, and pragmatic levels of language organization. The knowledge about the distinctive linguistic variables identifying language deficits associated to different neurodegenerative diseases has progressively improved in the last years. However, the heterogeneity of such variables and of the way they are measured and classified limits any generalization and makes the comparison among studies difficult. Here we present an exhaustive review of the studies focusing on the linguistic variables derived from the analysis of connected speech samples, with the aim of characterizing the language disorders of the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases, including primary progressive aphasia, Alzheimer's disease, movement disorders, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. A total of 61 studies have been included, considering only those reporting group analysis and comparisons with a group of healthy persons. This review first analyzes the differences in the tasks used to elicit connected speech, namely picture description, story narration, and interview, considering the possible different contributions to the assessment of different linguistic domains. This is followed by an analysis of the terminologies and of the methods of measurements of the variables, indicating the need for harmonization and standardization. The final section reviews the linguistic domains affected by each different neurodegenerative disease, indicating the variables most consistently impaired at each level and suggesting the key variables helping in the differential diagnosis among diseases. While a large amount of valuable information is already available, the review highlights the need of further work, including the development of automated methods, to take advantage of the richness of connected speech analysis for both research and clinical purposes.

Project description:BackgroundChildhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor-based speech sound disorder (SSD) with a core impairment in the planning and programming of spatiotemporal parameters of speech movement sequences. CAS may cause deficits in both segmental and suprasegmental components of speech, and it can severely affect children's ability to speak intelligibly and communicate effectively and impact their quality of life. Assessment tasks, such as the maximum performance tasks (MPT) and Syllable Repetition Task (SRT), examine children's segmental sequencing skills to assist with the diagnosis of CAS. In Hong Kong, although the MPT and SRT have been used clinically to diagnose CAS in Cantonese-speaking children, their validity has not been reported. There is an urgent need for such investigations. Suprasegmentally, lexical stress errors have been reported as a consensual feature and to aid in the diagnosis of CAS. However, there are challenges in diagnosing CAS in children who speak tonal languages like Cantonese. A recent study has reported lexical tone errors in Cantonese-speaking children with CAS. Furthermore, deficits in pitch-variation skills were found in Cantonese-speaking children with CAS using a tone sequencing task (TST). It is hypothesized that there is a universal deficit in pitch-variation skills among tonal and nontonal language speakers with CAS. Further investigations of pitch-variation skills using the TST in Cantonese-speaking children with CAS may shed light on suprasegmental deficits in tonal languages and contribute to the development of a valid diagnostic tool for CAS in children who speak other tonal languages, such as Vietnamese, Thai, and Mandarin.ObjectiveThis study aims to examine the diagnostic potential of the MPT, SRT, and TST in diagnosing Cantonese-speaking children with CAS and to investigate pitch-variation skills in Cantonese-speaking children with and without CAS.MethodsA total of 25 children with CAS and 3 groups of age- and gender-matched controls (non-CAS SSD only group, non-CAS SSD co-occurring with language impairment group, and typical development group) will be recruited. All participants will perform the MPT, SRT, and TST measures. Their performances on these tools will be perceptually judged and acoustically measured.ResultsData collection will last from January 1, 2022, to October 30, 2023. As of August 2022, the project has recruited 4 children in the CAS group, 21 children in the non-CAS SSD group, 4 children in the speech and language impairment group, and 53 children in the typical development group.ConclusionsIt is anticipated that Cantonese-speaking children with CAS will have poorer pitch-variation skills than the control groups and that the MPT, SRT, and TST will be appropriate diagnostic tools for identifying CAS in Cantonese-speaking children. The project will benefit the field of speech-language pathology locally and internationally, with short- and long-term impacts.International registered report identifier (irrid)DERR1-10.2196/40465.

Project description:Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a rare, severe, persistent pediatric motor speech disorder with associated deficits in sensorimotor, cognitive, language, learning and affective processes. Among other neurogenetic origins, CAS is the disorder segregating with a mutation in FOXP2 in a widely studied, multigenerational London family. We report the first whole-exome sequencing (WES) findings from a cohort of 10 unrelated participants, ages 3 to 19 years, with well-characterized CAS.As part of a larger study of children and youth with motor speech sound disorders, 32 participants were classified as positive for CAS on the basis of a behavioral classification marker using auditory-perceptual and acoustic methods that quantify the competence, precision and stability of a speaker's speech, prosody and voice. WES of 10 randomly selected participants was completed using the Illumina Genome Analyzer IIx Sequencing System. Image analysis, base calling, demultiplexing, read mapping, and variant calling were performed using Illumina software. Software developed in-house was used for variant annotation, prioritization and interpretation to identify those variants likely to be deleterious to neurodevelopmental substrates of speech-language development.Among potentially deleterious variants, clinically reportable findings of interest occurred on a total of five chromosomes (Chr3, Chr6, Chr7, Chr9 and Chr17), which included six genes either strongly associated with CAS (FOXP1 and CNTNAP2) or associated with disorders with phenotypes overlapping CAS (ATP13A4, CNTNAP1, KIAA0319 and SETX). A total of 8 (80%) of the 10 participants had clinically reportable variants in one or two of the six genes, with variants in ATP13A4, KIAA0319 and CNTNAP2 being the most prevalent.Similar to the results reported in emerging WES studies of other complex neurodevelopmental disorders, our findings from this first WES study of CAS are interpreted as support for heterogeneous genetic origins of this pediatric motor speech disorder with multiple genes, pathways and complex interactions. We also submit that our findings illustrate the potential use of WES for both gene identification and case-by-case clinical diagnostics in pediatric motor speech disorders.

Dataset Information

Protocol for the Connected Speech Transcription of Children with Speech Disorders: An Example from Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

Objective

Participants and methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Protocol for the Connected Speech Transcription of Children with Speech Disorders: An Example from Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

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