Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.22210/suvlin.2021.092.07
The contribution of certain acoustic vowel measures to the overall speech intelligibility
Patrizia Sorianello
; Aldo Moro University of Bari
Abstract
The primary aim of this research was to verify if the vowel space of Italian people with speech sound
disorders was diff erent from that of typically developing people. Several acoustic metrics derived
from vowels, such as VSA–3, FCR–3, VAI–3 F1–Ratio and F2–Ratio, were applied to three diff erent experimental groups: 1) individuals with Down Syndrome, 2) speakers with profound hearing
loss, and 3) hearing subjects without any chromosomal condition. Th e results proved that impaired
subjects displayed a reduced vowel space, both in the range of F1 and F2, a great overlap between
vowels and low speech intelligibility when compared to typical speakers. All measures were able to
diff erentiate subjects with speech disorders from controls. In contrast, FCR–3 and F1–Ratio failed
to distinguish people with Down Syndrome from deaf individuals.
Keywords
speech disorders; vowels; acoustic analysis; Italian
Hrčak ID:
269776
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2021.
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