A web-based platform for cross-linguistic research in dysarthric speech

描述(由申请人提供)：据我们估计，全世界93%的构音障碍患者，即4300万人，要么不会说英语，要么会说两种或多种语言。然而，构音障碍对除英语以外的其他语言的交际功能的影响几乎是未知的。这是因为我们描述和治疗构音障碍的机制是以英语为中心的--也就是说，基于英语的节奏和音素。然而，其他语言不同的节奏模式和语音清楚地表明，其他语言(如西班牙语)的构音障碍会给构音障碍患者带来非常不同的结果，并对他们的交际伙伴造成非常不同的感知挑战。尽管如此，目前还没有关于运动性言语障碍跨语言后果的系统研究，也没有机制来描述或解决除英语以外的其他语言的构音障碍。这在美国提出了一个重大的医疗保健问题，在估计的300万构音障碍患者中，超过50万人要么会说双语，要么不会说英语。我们可以解决这个问题。这项提议的总体目标是建立并免费提供一个跨语言的构音障碍音像数据库。该数据库将由说英语和/或西班牙语的构音障碍患者的语音样本组成，所有数据将标记有传记特征、时间对齐的正字法转录，以及与节奏模式、发音完整性和可理解性声学指标中的语音退化模式相关的量化声学数据。这个数据库将很容易搜索，数据将很容易导出。我们的国际合作处于实现这一目标的独特地位。我们现有的基础设施和资源可以用来建立数据库；我们已经开发了一个工作模式，通过它来探索构音障碍的跨语言交流功能；我们已经开发和测试了一系列自动声学度量，这些度量捕捉了语音节奏、发音完整性以及源和过滤器特征的各个方面；我们将开发一个 用于研究跨语言交流功能的通用语音刺激模板。这一建议将这些组成部分结合在一起，并作为随后的R01建议的基础，该建议旨在以假说为导向，研究构音障碍、语言和英语和西班牙语的交际功能。这一研究平台的发展为科学知识的快速进步提供了机会，这些知识可以直接转化为临床实践。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): By our estimation 93% of people with dysarthria worldwide, or 43 million people, either do not speak English or are bi- or multi-lingual. However, the consequences of dysarthria on communicative function in languages other than English are virtually unknown. This is because our mechanisms for describing and treating dysarthria are English-language centric-that is, based on the rhythm and phonology of the English language. However, the differing rhythm patterns and speech sounds of other languages make it patently clear that dysarthria in other languages (e.g., Spanish) will result in very different production consequences for people with dysarthria, and very different perceptual challenges for their communicative partners. While that is the case, there has been no systematic research on the consequences of motor speech disorders across languages and there is no mechanism to describe, or address, dysarthria in languages other than English. This presents a significant health-care issue here in the US, in which over 500,000 of the estimated three million people with dysarthria are either bilingual, or non-English speakers. We can address this issue. The overall goal of this proposal is to build, and make freely available, a cross-linguistic audio-visul database of dysarthric speech. The database will be comprised of speech samples from people with dysarthria who speak English and/or Spanish and all data will be tagged with biographical characteristics, time-aligned orthographic transcription, and quantified acoustic data related to patterns of speech degradation in rhythm patterns, articulatory integrity, and intelligibility acoustic metrics. This database will be easy to search, and data will be easy to export. Our international collaboration is uniquely placed to make this happen. We have existing infrastructure and resources that can be leveraged to build the database; we have developed a working model through which to explore cross-linguistic communication function in dysarthria; we have developed and tested battery of automated acoustic metrics that capture aspects of speech rhythm, articulatory integrity, and source and filter characteristics; and we will develop a universal speech stimuli template from which to study communication function cross-linguistically. This proposal brings these components together, and serves as the foundation for a subsequent R01 proposal aimed at hypothesis driven investigations of dysarthria, language, and communicative function in English and Spanish. The development of this research platform offers the opportunity for rapid advances in scientific knowledge, which can be directly translated to clinical practice.