Acoustic variability in the speech of children with cerebral palsy

Acoustic variability in the speech of children with cerebral palsy

本研究檢視兩對四歲腦性麻痺孩童和正常孩童的構音聲學變異性，研究項目包含母音空間、聲調和語速。研究語料為四位孩童的四卷錄音檔，內容為孩童的圖卡唸名和與大人的自然對話。分析結果顯示：1）母音空間：腦性麻痺孩童的母音空間比正常孩童小，且共振峰頻率分佈較為散亂且不穩定；2）音高：腦性麻痺孩童除了在發音上會花較多的時間外，其聲調也較正常孩童不穩定；3）說話語速：腦性麻痺孩童的語速和清晰度皆較低。這些初步的研究結果可再進一步驗證，腦性麻痺孩童聲學變異性特徵可提供臨床語言治療及評估的方向參考。

This study examines the acoustic variability in four 4-year-old children: two with cerebral palsy (CP) and two typically developing (TD). One recording from each child, collected from the picture-naming task and spontaneous interaction with adults was analyzed. Acoustic vowel space, pitch and speech rate in their production were investigated. Study findings indicated the following: 1) children with CP have a smaller vowel space than TD children, and there was a scattered distribution of the formant frequencies in CP; 2) children with CP tend to spend more time producing the utterances and their production of tones was unstable; and 3) both the speech rate and speech intelligibility in CP were lower. Future studies are needed to verify these preliminary findings. The variability features in the production of children with CP provide important references in speech therapy.