Automatic quantification of speech intelligibility of adults with oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

It has been the aim of the present study to introduce a novel automatic technique for the objective and quantitative assessment of speech intelligibility to the evaluation of postoperative outcome.

PATIENTS AND METHODS:

Forty-six patients with oral carcinomas, mean age 59.8 +/- 10.1 years, and an age-matched control group of 40 subjects without oral diseases. Recordings of a standard text read by the patients and the control group were analyzed by an automatic speech recognition system.

RESULTS:

For the patients, automatic speech recognition yielded word recognition rates between 8 and 82% (mean 49 +/- 19%), for the control group between 60 and 91% (76 +/- 7%). Automatic evaluation closely correlated with the experts' perceptual evaluation of intelligibility (r = -0.93; p < 0.01). The multi-rater kappa of the experts alone (0.55) differed only slightly from the multi-rater kappa of the experts and the speech recognition system (0.58).

CONCLUSION:

For adults with speech disorders, automatic speech recognition may serve as a valuable tool to assess global speech outcome after treatment of oral squamous cell carcinoma objectively and quantitatively for clinical and research purposes.

• Authors: M Windrich, A Maier, R Kohler, E Noth, E Nkenke, U Eysholdt, M Schuster
• Journal: Folia phoniatrica et logopaedica : official organ of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP) (Folia Phoniatr Logop) Vol. 60 Issue 3 Pg. 151-6 ( 2008) ISSN: 1421-9972 [Electronic] Switzerland
• PMID: 18340110 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)
• Copyright: 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Topics

• Adult
• Aged
• Aged, 80 and over
• Automatism
• Carcinoma, Squamous Cell (complications)
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Mouth Neoplasms (complications)
• Speech Disorders (diagnosis, epidemiology, etiology)
• Speech Intelligibility
• Speech Perception