Purpose: This study investigated the ecological validity of conventional voice assessments by comparing the self-perceived voice quality and acoustic characteristics of voice production during these assessments to those in a simulated environment with varying distracting conditions and noise levels. Method: Forty-two university professors (26…

Objectives: The purposes of this study were to compare (a) listening-in-noise (accuracy and effort) and (b) remote microphone (RM) system benefits between autistic and non-autistic youth. Design: Groups of autistic and non-autistic youth that were matched on chronological age and biological sex completed listening-in-noise testing when wearing and…

Purpose: The current standard for clinical diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is expert clinician judgment. The psychometric properties of this standard are not well understood; however, they are important for improving clinical diagnosis. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which experts agree on the clinical…

Purpose: Although speech-language pathologists have provided gender-affirming voice training for trans women since the 1970s, evidence for this training's effectiveness remains weak. Our study aimed to redress limitations of earlier studies and evaluate voice training effects on outcomes important to trans women. Method: Seventy-four trans women…

Purpose: Auditory feedback perturbation with voice pitch manipulation has been widely used in previous studies. There are several hardware and software tools for such manipulations, but audio plug-ins developed for music, movies, and radio applications that operate in digital audio workstations may be extremely beneficial and are easy to use,…

Purpose: There is increasing interest in using automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems to evaluate impairment severity or speech intelligibility in speakers with dysarthria. We assessed the clinical validity of one currently available off-the-shelf (OTS) ASR system (i.e., a Google Cloud ASR API) for indexing sentence-level speech…

Background: Publicly available speech corpora facilitate reproducible research by providing open-access data for participants who have consented/assented to data sharing among different research teams. Such corpora can also support clinical education, including perceptual training and training in the use of speech analysis tools. Purpose: In this…

Purpose: The primary aim of this study was to obtain high-quality acoustic normative data in natural field environments for female voices. A secondary aim was to examine acoustic measurement variability in field environments. Method: This study employed a within-subject repeated-measures experimental design that included 45 young female adults…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to experimentally evaluate how compensating for the adverse acoustic effects of a posterior glottal opening (PGO) by increasing subglottal pressure and changing supraglottal compression, as have been associated with vocal hyperfunction, influences the risk of vocal fold (VF) trauma. Method: A self-oscillating…

Purpose: Various aspects of speech production related to auditory-motor integration and learning have been examined through auditory feedback perturbation paradigms in which participants' acoustic speech output is experimentally altered and played back via earphones/headphones "in real time." Scientific rigor requires high precision in…

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate a novel communication system designed to translate surface electromyographic (sEMG) signals from articulatory muscles into speech using a personalized, digital voice. The system was evaluated for word recognition, prosodic classification, and listener perception of synthesized speech. Method: sEMG signals were…

Purpose: This study examined the impact of home use of remote microphone systems (RMSs) on caregiver communication and child vocalizations in families of children with hearing loss. Method: We drew on data from a prior study in which Language ENvironmental Analysis recorders were used with 9 families during 2 consecutive weekends--1 that involved…

Purpose: The impact of home use of a remote microphone system (RMS) on the caregiver production of, and child access to, child-directed speech (CDS) in families with a young child with hearing loss was investigated. Method: We drew upon extant data that were collected via Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) recorders used with 9 families during 2…

Purpose: Sound pressure level (SPL) measurement of voice and speech is often considered a trivial matter, but the measured levels are often reported incorrectly or incompletely, making them difficult to compare among various studies. This article aims at explaining the fundamental principles behind these measurements and providing guidelines to…

Purpose: Recording young children's vocalizations through wearables is a promising method to assess language development. However, accurately and rapidly annotating these files remains challenging. Online crowdsourcing with the collaboration of citizen scientists could be a feasible solution. In this article, we assess the extent to which citizen…