Characterizing rhythm in dysarthric speech using the temporal envelope

Resumen

This study investigated the rhythmic characteristicsof 15 dysarthric speakers and 15 non-dysarthricspeakers. Speech rhythm was viewed fromMacNeilage’s frame/content theory. Specifically, thetemporal envelope was analysed. The subjects, nativespeakers of Canarian Spanish, read four phoneticallybalanced sentences. Five common spectral measures(centroid, spread, rolloff, flatness, and entropy) werecomputed from the temporal envelope of eachsentence. A binomial logistic regression model wasbuilt to evaluate how well the five spectral measurescan characterize speech rhythm in dysarthric speakersversus the control group. The results show that thedysarthric group present a significantly lowercentroid and lower spread. Possible explanations forthese results are discussed in relation to previousphonetic studies into the rhythmic speech patterns ofdysarthric speakers.