Clinically meaningful metrics of speech in neurodegenerative disease: Quantification of speech intelligibility and naturalness in ataxia

Clinically meaningful metrics of speech in neurodegenerative disease: Quantification of speech intelligibility and naturalness in ataxia Adam P Vogel, Paul Maruff, Hannah Reece, Hannah Carter, Geneieve Tai, Benjamin G Schultz, Louise Corben, Martin B Delatycki, Athanasios Tsanas; medRxiv 2023.03.28.23287878; doi:10.1101/2023.03.28.23287878

We demonstrate a subset of measures are strongly associated with all four clinical scales. Objective speech data replicated expert assessments of naturalness and intelligibility. These scores represent a lower level of variability than observed between subjective listener ratings. Findings provide evidence there are specific objective markers of speech that change over time and reflect clinical aspects of the disease. Discussion: The use of a large dataset yielded a speech assay capable of accurately approximating expert listener ratings of key clinical aspects of dysarthria severity. Distinct but complementary subsets align with disease severity and speech related quality of life.

Clinically meaningful metrics of speech in neurodegenerative disease: Quantification of speech intelligibility and naturalness in ataxia