How Dysarthric Prosody Impacts Naïve Listeners' Recognition

The class of speech disorders known as dysarthria arise from disturbances in muscular control over the speech mechanism caused by damage of the central or peripheral nervous system. Dysarthria is typically classified into one of six classes, each corresponding to a different neurological disorder with distinct prosodic cues. The assumption in this classification is that dysarthric speech can be classified implicit on the basis of perception. In this study, we investigate how accurately naïve listeners can recognize stress and intonation in dysarthric speech, and if different neurological disorders impact the ability to convey meaning with these same two cues. To those ends, we collected speech data from Dutch speakers diagnosed with cerebellar lesions (ataxic dysarthria), Parkinson’s Disease (hypokinetic dysarthria), Multiple Sclerosis (mixed classes of dysarthria) and from a healthy control group.

In Speech and Computer: 21st International Conference, SPECOM 2019