TITLE:
Automatic evaluation of speech impairment caused by wearing a dental appliance
AUTHORS:
Mariko Hattori, Yuka I. Sumita, Hisashi Taniguchi
KEYWORDS:
Prosthodontics; Maxillofacial Prosthodontics; Speech; Automatic Speech Recognition
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Stomatology,
Vol.3 No.7,
October
24,
2013
ABSTRACT: In dentistry, speech
evaluation is important for appropriate orofacial dysfunction rehabilitation.
The speech intelligibility test is often used to assess patients’ speech, and
it involves an evaluation by human listeners. However, the test has certain shortcomings,
and an alternative method, without a listening procedure, is needed. The purpose
of this study was to test the applicability of an automatic speech intelligibility
test system using a computerized speech recognition technique. Speech of 10
normal subjects, when wearing a dental appliance, was evaluated using an
automatic speech intelligibility test system that was developed using
computerized speech recognition software. The results of the automatic test
were referred to as the speech recognition scores. The Wilcoxon signed rank
test was used to analyze differences in the results of the test between the
following 2 conditions: with the palatal plate in place and with the palatal
plate removed. Spearman correlation coefficients were used to evaluate whether
the speech recognition score correlated with the result of conventional intelligibility
test. The speech recognition score was significantly decreased when wearing the
plate (z = -2.807, P = 0.0050). The automatic evaluation results positively
correlated with that of conventional evaluation when wearing the appliance (r =
0.729, P = 0.017). The automatic speech testing system may be useful for
evaluating speech intelligibility in denture wearers.