scholarly journals Validity and reliability of acoustic analysis of respiratory sounds in infants

2004 ◽  
Vol 89 (11) ◽  
pp. 1059-1063 ◽  
Author(s):  
H E Elphick
1971 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 288-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Kossowska ◽  
Z. Korycki ◽  
S. Czarnecki ◽  
E. Sławińska ◽  
A. Kulesza

2001 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 420-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alana V Phillips ◽  
Ian Stirling

We describe the vocal repertoire of male and female South American fur seals (Arctocephalus australis) breeding at Punta San Juan, Peru, the first such description for any member of the genus. We distinguished 11 call types, which we grouped into four functional classes: investigative, threat, submissive, and affiliative calls. Barking is used during non-agonistic investigation of other individuals. Threat calls of South American fur seals show gradation of structure, form, and apparent meaning, and are grouped into two series: nontonal or respiratory sounds, and pulsed or guttural sounds that sometimes include a terminal tonal component. This might be adaptive in enabling display behavior to be flexible in agonistic situations, allowing participants to interpret situations on the basis of contextual cues and their own physical ability and experience. In contrast, vocal displays such as submissive, full-threat, and affiliative calls tend to have a discrete acoustic structure. Of these, full-threat, female-attraction, and pup-attraction calls share acoustic characteristics: all are long, loud calls composed of both pulsed and tonal components, and show sufficient variation to allow individual recognition. We attempt to establish a base line for standardizing nomenclature and acoustic analysis, to facilitate further comparative research on the vocal repertoire of Arctocephalus species.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1018-1032
Author(s):  
Chia-Hsin Wu ◽  
Roger W. Chan

Purpose Semi-occluded vocal tract (SOVT) exercises with tubes or straws have been widely used for a variety of voice disorders. Yet, the effects of longer periods of SOVT exercises (lasting for weeks) on the aging voice are not well understood. This study investigated the effects of a 6-week straw phonation in water (SPW) exercise program. Method Thirty-seven elderly subjects with self-perceived voice problems were assigned into two groups: (a) SPW exercises with six weekly sessions and home practice (experimental group) and (b) vocal hygiene education (control group). Before and after intervention (2 weeks after the completion of the exercise program), acoustic analysis, auditory–perceptual evaluation, and self-assessment of vocal impairment were conducted. Results Analysis of covariance revealed significant differences between the two groups in smoothed cepstral peak prominence measures, harmonics-to-noise ratio, the auditory–perceptual parameter of breathiness, and Voice Handicap Index-10 scores postintervention. No significant differences between the two groups were found for other measures. Conclusions Our results supported the positive effects of SOVT exercises for the aging voice, with a 6-week SPW exercise program being a clinical option. Future studies should involve long-term follow-up and additional outcome measures to better understand the efficacy of SOVT exercises, particularly SPW exercises, for the aging voice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panying Rong

Purpose The purpose of this article was to validate a novel acoustic analysis of oral diadochokinesis (DDK) in assessing bulbar motor involvement in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Method An automated acoustic DDK analysis was developed, which filtered out the voice features and extracted the envelope of the acoustic waveform reflecting the temporal pattern of syllable repetitions during an oral DDK task (i.e., repetitions of /tɑ/ at the maximum rate on 1 breath). Cycle-to-cycle temporal variability (cTV) of envelope fluctuations and syllable repetition rate (sylRate) were derived from the envelope and validated against 2 kinematic measures, which are tongue movement jitter (movJitter) and alternating tongue movement rate (AMR) during the DDK task, in 16 individuals with bulbar ALS and 18 healthy controls. After the validation, cTV, sylRate, movJitter, and AMR, along with an established clinical speech measure, that is, speaking rate (SR), were compared in their ability to (a) differentiate individuals with ALS from healthy controls and (b) detect early-stage bulbar declines in ALS. Results cTV and sylRate were significantly correlated with movJitter and AMR, respectively, across individuals with ALS and healthy controls, confirming the validity of the acoustic DDK analysis in extracting the temporal DDK pattern. Among all the acoustic and kinematic DDK measures, cTV showed the highest diagnostic accuracy (i.e., 0.87) with 80% sensitivity and 94% specificity in differentiating individuals with ALS from healthy controls, which outperformed the SR measure. Moreover, cTV showed a large increase during the early disease stage, which preceded the decline of SR. Conclusions This study provided preliminary validation of a novel automated acoustic DDK analysis in extracting a useful measure, namely, cTV, for early detection of bulbar ALS. This analysis overcame a major barrier in the existing acoustic DDK analysis, which is continuous voicing between syllables that interferes with syllable structures. This approach has potential clinical applications as a novel bulbar assessment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 622-636
Author(s):  
John Heilmann ◽  
Alexander Tucci ◽  
Elena Plante ◽  
Jon F. Miller

Purpose The goal of this clinical focus article is to illustrate how speech-language pathologists can document the functional language of school-age children using language sample analysis (LSA). Advances in computer hardware and software are detailed making LSA more accessible for clinical use. Method This clinical focus article illustrates how documenting school-age student's communicative functioning is central to comprehensive assessment and how using LSA can meet multiple needs within this assessment. LSA can document students' meaningful participation in their daily life through assessment of their language used during everyday tasks. The many advances in computerized LSA are detailed with a primary focus on the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (Miller & Iglesias, 2019). The LSA process is reviewed detailing the steps necessary for computers to calculate word, morpheme, utterance, and discourse features of functional language. Conclusion These advances in computer technology and software development have made LSA clinically feasible through standardized elicitation and transcription methods that improve accuracy and repeatability. In addition to improved accuracy, validity, and reliability of LSA, databases of typical speakers to document status and automated report writing more than justify the time required. Software now provides many innovations that make LSA simpler and more accessible for clinical use. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12456719


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 132-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Zubow ◽  
Richard Hurtig

Children with Rett Syndrome (RS) are reported to use multiple modalities to communicate although their intentionality is often questioned (Bartolotta, Zipp, Simpkins, & Glazewski, 2011; Hetzroni & Rubin, 2006; Sigafoos et al., 2000; Sigafoos, Woodyatt, Tuckeer, Roberts-Pennell, & Pittendreigh, 2000). This paper will present results of a study analyzing the unconventional vocalizations of a child with RS. The primary research question addresses the ability of familiar and unfamiliar listeners to interpret unconventional vocalizations as “yes” or “no” responses. This paper will also address the acoustic analysis and perceptual judgments of these vocalizations. Pre-recorded isolated vocalizations of “yes” and “no” were presented to 5 listeners (mother, father, 1 unfamiliar, and 2 familiar clinicians) and the listeners were asked to rate the vocalizations as either “yes” or “no.” The ratings were compared to the original identification made by the child's mother during the face-to-face interaction from which the samples were drawn. Findings of this study suggest, in this case, the child's vocalizations were intentional and could be interpreted by familiar and unfamiliar listeners as either “yes” or “no” without contextual or visual cues. The results suggest that communication partners should be trained to attend to eye-gaze and vocalizations to ensure the child's intended choice is accurately understood.


2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-54
Author(s):  
Kerry Callahan Mandulak

Spectral moment analysis (SMA) is an acoustic analysis tool that shows promise for enhancing our understanding of normal and disordered speech production. It can augment auditory-perceptual analysis used to investigate differences across speakers and groups and can provide unique information regarding specific aspects of the speech signal. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the utility of SMA as a clinical measure for both clinical speech production assessment and research applications documenting speech outcome measurements. Although acoustic analysis has become more readily available and accessible, clinicians need training with, and exposure to, acoustic analysis methods in order to integrate them into traditional methods used to assess speech production.


2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-46
Author(s):  
Nicole M. Etter

Traditionally, speech-language pathologists (SLP) have been trained to develop interventions based on a select number of perceptual characteristics of speech without or through minimal use of objective instrumental and physiologic assessment measures of the underlying articulatory subsystems. While indirect physiological assumptions can be made from perceptual assessment measures, the validity and reliability of those assumptions are tenuous at best. Considering that neurological damage will result in various degrees of aberrant speech physiology, the need for physiologic assessments appears highly warranted. In this context, do existing physiological measures found in the research literature have sufficient diagnostic resolution to provide distinct and differential data within and between etiological classifications of speech disorders and versus healthy controls? The goals of this paper are (a) to describe various physiological and movement-related techniques available to objectively study various dysarthrias and speech production disorders and (b) to develop an appreciation for the need for increased systematic research to better define physiologic features of dysarthria and speech production disorders and their relation to know perceptual characteristics.


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