Abstract

This study investigated the effects of the types of noise and signal to noise ratios (SNRs) on speech intelligibility of an adult with dysartrhia. Speech intelligibility was judged by 48 naive listeners using a word transcription task. Repeated measures design was used with the types of noise (multi-talker babble/environmental noise) and SNRs (0, +10 dB, +20 dB) as within-subject factors. The dependent measure was the percentage of correctly transcribed words. Results revealed that two main effects were statistically significant. Listeners performed significantly worse in the multi-talker babble condition than the environmental noise condition, and they performed significantly better at higher levels of SNRs. The current results suggested that the multi-talker babble and lower level of SNRs decreased the speech intelligibility of adults with dysarthria, and speech-language pathologists should consider environmental factors such as the types of noise and SNRs in evaluating speech intelligibility of adults with dysarthria.

Keywords

• speech intelligibility;
• types of noise;
• signal to noise ratios;
• dysarthria