Background
Structured Perceptual Evaluation of Children's Speech (SPECS) is funded by the National Institutes of Health (R01DC015653; Katherine Hustad, PI). Our objective is to develop and validate perceptual measures for evidence-based clinical speech assessment for children, across a range of speech differences and disorders
The tool we are using is an American English adaptation of the Bogenhausen Dysarthria Scales, or the "BoDyS", which is a German tool, developed by Ziegler and colleagues (Ziegler et al., 2017).
Our interest with SPECS is to test and validate a pediatric adaptation, called the BoDyS - Kid with American English speaking children (Haas et al., 2021; Scholderle et al., 2022; Scholderle et al., 2020).
Goals
Our goals are to develop growth curves for typically developing children between 2;6 and 10;0 years for each of 10 auditory perceptual domains, so we can understand maturation of each domain and establish when each one becomes adult-like.
We will then look at how children with motor speech disorders or children at risk for motor speech disorders differ from their same-age peers
A key goal is to establish cut-points for what constitutes "neurotypical".
Another key goal is to identify which perceptual domains from among the 10 make the biggest impact on speech intelligibility which will help us prioritize treatment goals
Ultimately, we hope that an end result is a tool that clinicians can use to make perceptual ratings and then compare results to age expectations for speech.
Why Participate
We need your help. As a speech-language pathologist (SLP), your participation in SPECS will directly advance evidence-based assessment and clinical decision-making for children across the developmental continuum with speech concerns.
We are seeking many SLPs for SPECS to ensure that our findings reflect the perceptions of clinicians at large, not just highly specialized experts. This will ensure that our results are applicable to everyday practice by everyday clinicians.
By lending your real-world clinical ears to the measurement of perceptual speech characteristics, you will play an active role in the development and validation of new tools for speech assessment in children.
Frequently Asked Questions
We are seeking speech language pathologists who speak English as a primary language (including bilingual SLPs) and reside in the U.S. Certificate of Clinical Competence from ASHA is required and will be verified. SLPs must have at least one year of clinical experience, but do not need to be working clinically to participate.
You will be asked to listen to speech samples and make ratings of specific auditory perceptual speech features. Specifically, you will:
- Complete a demographics questionnaire.
- Complete a training module regarding auditory perceptual assessment of speech.
- Complete a listening check to verify that you are wearing headphones or earbuds in both ears.
- Make ratings of 10 auditory perceptual domains for four different speech samples obtained from one child.
- Make ratings of 10 auditory perceptual domains for four different speech samples obtained from a second child.
- Complete a post-task questionnaire regarding your experience making auditory perceptual ratings across the two children.
- You may be offered the opportunity to rate up to 4 additional children (10 auditory perceptual domains for four different speech samples per child) if you complete more than 90% of the ratings on each of the first two children you rate.
Your participation for tasks 1-6, above, is expected to take up to 90 minutes. If you opt to add the 7th task (rating up to 4 additional children), we expect it will add up to 60 more minutes.
You will be able to take breaks during the study and will be able to pause your participation and return at a later time if you desire.
Completing the background questionnaire, the training, and the ratings for two children will take approximately 90 minutes.
You can take breaks along with way, and return at any time. To return to SPECS after taking a break, use the link provided in your enrollment email. All of your ratings made prior to taking a break will be saved and you will pick up where you left off.
Note that you must complete your SPECS ratings within 2 weeks of completing the training. If you do not complete your ratings within this timeframe, you will not be able to access SPECS and you will not receive payment.
You will be paid $80 after you complete a background questionnaire, the training, and the ratings for two children.
If you do not provide ratings for at least 75% of the items for each of the first two children that you will rate, you will not receive any compensation.
You will be able to select between two options for receiving payment. These are: Venmo cash payment, or an Amazon gift card claim code.
To receive your $80 payment for participating in SPECS you must complete at least 75% of all ratings. If you complete more than 90% of all ratings for the first two children, you may be offered the option to rate up to four more children for additional payment of $80. You will not have to complete this training again.
You will rate two different children. For each child, you will hear three or four different speech samples. You will rate the same set of features and domains on each sample from each child. This will provide us with speech ratings across a representative sample of spoken utterances for each child, so that "bad" utterances have a lesser impact overall on ratings for each child. You will make feature and domain ratings up to 8 times.
If you complete 90% or more of the ratings across all domains and features for each child, you may be invited to rate up to 4 additional children. Because you will have already completed the background questionnaire, the training, and ratings for 2 children, we expect that making ratings for 2 additional children will require about one hour. You will be paid an additional $80 for this, for a total of $160.
You can complete your ratings for the additional children on a different day and time when it is convenient for you.
There are 10 domains and associated features that SLPs will rate in SPECS. These are translated and adapted from the pediatric version of the Bogenhausen Dysarthria Scales, or the "BoDyS-Kid" (Haas et al., 2021; Scholderle et al., 2022; Scholderle et al., 2020; Ziegler et al., 2017).
SLPs will listen to speech samples from children and compare these samples with models from mature adults. SLPs will rate the following domains and features:
Speech breathing
- Short breath groups
- Audible or effortful inspiration
- Speaking on residual air
- Speaking on inspiration
- Perceptual noticeability of speech breathing
Loudness and Pitch
- Loud voice
- Soft voice
- High pitch
- Low pitch
- Perceptual noticeability of loudness and pitch
Voice Stability
- Fluctuation in pitch or loudness
- Fluctuation in voice quality
- Voice tremor
- Loudness decay or voice breaks
- Involuntary vocalizations
- Perceptual noticeability of voice stability
Voice Quality
- Breathy voice
- Harsh voice
- Strained-strangled voice
- Perceptual noticeability of voice quality
Articulation
- Consonant errors
- Vowel errors
- Articulation sequencing difficulty
- Perceptual noticeability of articulation
Resonance
- Hypernasality
- Hyponasality
- Mixed hyper- and hypo-nasality
- Perceptual noticeability of resonance
Speech Rate
- Accelerated rate
- Reduced rate
- Perceptual noticeability of speech rate
Prosody
- Reduced prosodic variation
- Excessive prosodic variation
- Atypical rhythm or stress patterns
- Perceptual noticeability of prosody
Speech fluency
- Inappropriate pauses
- Segment repetitions
- Perceptual noticeability of speech fluency
Functional communication
- Speech intelligibility
- Speech naturalness
- Communication effectiveness
The children who contributed speech samples for this study range in age between 2;6 years and 10;0 years. All children are from the upper midwestern region of the U.S., primarily within a 4 hour radius of Madison, WI. Samples were obtained in-person from all children.
Children include those with typical development and those with neurodevelopmental disabilities, including cerebral palsy.
You will not be provided with information regarding the age, sex, or clinical status of the children that you will rate. This is because we are interested in your perceptual ratings compared only to adult models without any preconceived notions or expectations regarding characteristics of the children.
All children are producing the same sentences, taken from the Test of Children's Speech. Most children are also producing spontaneous speech samples with either a parent or a clinician.
Before you begin making ratings, you'll listen to two sets of speech samples. First you will hear four different adults saying four phrases. The idea is to provide you with a general example of what mature young adults sound like, generically, when producing the target speech stimuli.
Then you will listen to one child producing the same phrases as the adults. You are evaluating this specific child, compared to the general production of the young adults on the domains and features adapted from the BoDyS-Kid, described above.
You can listen as many times as you'd like to the samples, and the samples are available to listen to on each rating page.
We are examining speech samples obtained from about 1300 recording sessions with children. We aim to gather ratings from 4 different SLPs for each child recording session. We will look at differences within and between SLP raters for each child.
To accomplish our goal, we expect to recruit about 2,400 SLPs from across the U.S. to participate in this study. Please refer your friends and colleagues!
Results of this study will be published in scientific journals and will be presented at professional meetings. Your name will not be associated with the data that you contributed to this study. Your data will be de-identified and labeled with a code number and stored electronically on a secure server. Only project staff with security permissions will have the ability to connect identifying information with your data. The study is protected by a Certificate of Confidentiality from the National Institutes of Health.
In an effort to increase accessibility, accountability, reproducibility, de-identified data from this study will be made available to the scientific community via online data repositories. Additionally, de-identified data may be used for future research outside the scope of the current project.
Haas, E., Ziegler, W., & Scholderle, T. (2021). Developmental courses in childhood dysarthria: Longitudinal analyses of auditory-perceptual parameters. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 64(5), 1421-1435.
Haas, E., Ziegler, W., & Scholderle, T. (2022). Intelligibility, speech rate, and communication efficiency in children with neurological conditions: A longitudinal study of childhood dysarthria. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 31(4), 1817-1835.
Scholderle, T., Haas, E., & Ziegler, W. (2022). Childhood Dysarthria: Auditory-Perceptual Profiles Against the Background of Typical Speech Motor Development. J Speech Lang Hear Res, 65(6), 2114-2127. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00608
Scholderle, T., Haas, E., & Ziegler, W. (2020). Age norms for auditory-perceptual neurophonetic parameters: a prerequisite for the assessment of childhood dysarthria. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63(4), 1071-1082.
Scholderle, T., Haas, E., & Ziegler, W. (2023). Speech Naturalness in the Assessment of Childhood Dysarthria. Am J Speech Lang Pathol, 32(4), 1633-1643. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_AJSLP-23-00023
Ziegler, W., Staiger, A., Scholderle, T., & Vogel, M. (2017). Gauging the auditory dimensions of dysarthric impairment: Reliability and construct validity of the Bogenhausen Dysarthria Scales (BoDyS). Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60(6), 1516-1534.