Penelope Bacsfalvi

Speech habilitation of hard of hearing adolescents using electropalatography and ultrasound as evaluated by trained listeners

Four adolescents with moderate to severe sensorineural hearing losses and moderately unintelligible speech participated in a 14-week speech therapy study using two dynamic visual feedback technologies, electropalatography and ultrasound imaging. Electropalatography provides information about tongue-hard palate contact points. Ultrasound displays images of tongue shape and movement in two dimensions from the tip to the root. Treatment targets for all participants included a sibilant place contrast (/s/ versus / Z /), liquids /l/ and /r/, and the tense-lax vowel contrast with the high vowels. Trained listener evaluations of pre- and post-treatment transcripts are reported in this paper. Significant improvements in speech production were noted across students and targets. Treatment targets improved significantly more than non-treatment test targets overall. Students showed greatest gains on consonants that were absent or marginal in their speech pre-treatment. No particular advantage of one technology over the other was evident in this sample.

Ultrasound in Speech Therapy with Adolescents and Adults.

The present paper comprises an overview of techniques using ultrasound in speech (re)habilitation. Ultrasound treatment techniques have been developed for English lingual stops, vowels, sibilants, and liquids. These techniques come from a series of small n studies with adolescents and adults with severe hearing impairment, residual speech impairment or accented speech at the Interdisciplinary Speech Research Laboratory at the University of British Columbia. Ultrasound allows excellent visualization of tongue shape features, which is especially useful for feedback during speech (re)habilitation. Further research is needed to evaluate the efficacy of ultrasound in speech (re)habilitation.

Long-term outcomes of speech therapy for seven adolescents with visual feedback technologies: Ultrasound and electropalatography

This follow-up study investigated the speech production of seven adolescents and young adults with hearing impairment 2–4 years after speech intervention with ultrasound and electropalatography. Perceptual judgments by seven expert listeners revealed that five out of seven speakers either continued to generalize post-treatment or maintained their level of performance post-treatment. Targets included fricatives, vowels and the rhotic /ɹ/. Speakers ranged in age from 14 to 19 years. Listeners were considered to be expert listeners. All listeners had extensive backgrounds in phonetics and phonology and were speech-language pathologists. This long-term investigation revealed that speech habilitation with visual feedback tools as adjuncts to therapy appeared to have lasting effects. The implications for habilitation include reduced therapy times and outcomes not previously possible.

Electropalatography and ultrasound in vowel remediation for adolescents with hearing impairment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of electropalatography (EPG) and ultrasound in the remediation of vowels in adolescents with hearing impairment. Three adolescents with severe hearing impairment participated in a 6-week vowel remediation programme using electropalatography (EPG) and dynamic two-dimensional ultrasound as adjuncts to speech therapy. Pre- and post-therapy speech productions were evaluated in terms of vowel formant values, EPG tongue-palate contact patterns and phonetic transcription. Notable changes were observed for all vowels across speakers, with most changes in the direction of the adult English targets. Transcription, acoustic and EPG tongue-palate contact results did not necessarily converge across vowels or speakers. Visual feedback as provided by EPG and ultrasound can be facilitative in promoting vowel development in adolescents with hearing impairment. Further research is required to evaluate the stability of changes, the relative impact of ultrasound and EPG and the relationship between phonetic transcriptions, tongue-palate contact and acoustic information about vowels.

Case study using ultrasound to treat

Background: Ultrasound has shown promise as visual feedback in remediation of /ɹ/.Aims: To compare treatment for /ɹ/ with and without ultrasound.Methods & Procedures: A Canadian English‐speaking adolescent participated in a case study with a no treatment baseline, alternating treatment blocks with and without ultrasound and a final no treatment period.Outcomes & Results: Formant values and trained listener ratings of speech samples indicated improvement in /ɹ/ production, particularly after the introduction of ultrasound.Conclusions: Ultrasound appeared to facilitate the acquisition of /ɹ/ for the participant. Large‐scale studies are needed to evaluate ultrasound further.

A motor differentiation model for liquid substitutions in children’s speech

Studies of lip‐jaw coordination in children have shown a lack of motor differentiation between anatomically coupled articulators in young childrens speech [Green & al. 2000, JSLHR 43: 239–255]. A model is described in which children contending with their developing motor systems generally strive to reduce the degrees of freedom of complex anatomical structures (e.g., the tongue). The claim is pursued that segmental substitutions (e.g., /w/ replacing /r/ or /l/) are the result of specific compensation strategies which aim to simplify the complexity of the articulatory task. The proposal that gestural simplification may dictate substitution strategies for liquid consonants has been suggested previously [Studdert‐Kennedy & Goldstein 2003, Language Evolution, Oxford U. Pr. 235‐254]. It is proposed here that gestural simplification may be achieved via one of two basic mechanisms: gestural omission and stiffening (and hence merger), and that these two mechanisms account for all of the commonly attested substitu...

Perceptual, acoustic, and tongue shape measures during /r/ production pre‐ and post‐treatment using visual feedback from ultrasound: case studies of two adolescents

This study examined the effectiveness of using visual feedback from ultrasound in remediation of persistent /r/ errors. Ultrasound provided the participants and the clinician with a dynamic sagittal or coronal image of the tongue during speech production. The participants in this study were two adolescent boys ages 12 and 14 who were not able to produce an on‐target North American /r/. Both participants had received at least one year of traditional /r/ therapy without improvement. Treatment was provided over 13 one‐hour sessions using visual feedback from ultrasound. Initially, /r/ was broken down and rehearsed as individual motor targets (tongue tip, body, root); these components were then practiced in combination to produce /r/ in isolation, then in syllables, words, and phrases. Post‐treatment changes in /r/ production were captured through transcription, acoustic analysis, and tongue shape measurement. Both participants /r/ productions were rated as having more tokens of on‐target /r/ post‐treatment. ...

Articulatory and acoustic measurements of vowels in hearing impaired speakers following treatment

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between ultrasound tongue shapes, electropalatography (EPG) contacts, formant data, and the perceptual data in the vowels of three hard of hearing adolescents. This pilot study examines the pre‐ and post‐therapy speech of the participants in a 6 week group therapy programme with ultrasound and EPG technologies. Before treatment, participants showed particular difficulty with high vowels and the tense‐lax distinction. Recordings were made of 2 males and 1 female with ultrasound and EPG. Three types of measurements were made; formant measurements, EPG tongue palate contacts, and perceptual judgements by experienced speech‐language pathology researchers. Initial analysis values showed a change in the direction of EPG contact patterns, and perceptual categories. F1 values decreased and F2 values increased, moving in the direction of typical formant frequencies found in hearing people. Preliminary results of this study support a lingual‐articulatory ap...

Intrinsic fundamental frequency effects in hearing impaired speakers

The source of the well‐known intrinsic fundamental frequency (IF0) effect of vowel height has been controversial for decades. Previous work has found the average IF0 effect cross‐linguistically to be 15.3 Hz [Whalen and Levitt, J. Phonetics (1995)]. The present study investigates IF0 for four hearing‐impaired speakers. Based on previous observations that profoundly hearing impaired speakers vary voice pitch less than normal hearing speakers [Osberger and McGarr, Speech Lang. (1982)], our participants were expected to show a reduced IF0 effect. However, results show an average IF0 effect of 22 Hz, with a markedly wide range across speakers, from −4 to 48 Hz, with three of the four participants showing an above average‐sized effect. Further, results of measures taken following speech articulation intervention using visual feedback [Bernhardt et al., Clin. Linguist Phonet. (2003)] show a decrease in IF0 for the speakers with an over‐sized effect, and an increase in the speaker with an under‐sized effect, des...