CSD 509: Motor Speech Disorders

Lab 4 - Speech Intelligibility

Winter 2024

Assessment of Intelligibility in Connected Speech

As you have learned, an assessment task which can provide objective data about a client's
articulation and overall intelligibility, is the Assessment of Intelligibility of Dysarthric Speech
(AIDS) (Yorkston & Beukelman 1984)

A. The AIDS is a tool for quantifying single-word intelligibility, sentence intelligibility,

and speaking rate of adult and adolescent speakers with dysarthria.
B. A client is given a list of words and/or sentences to read aloud.
C. Following this, an unfamiliar listener is asked to listen to the recording and
transcribe what they heard.
D. This is then compared with the original list.
E. The % intelligibility score is the percentage of words correctly identified by the
listener.

Go to a computer.

F. Open the file Ax.May23.NN (words & sentences) under the Week 4 tab on eClass.
G. You will be listening to a recording of a client with Dysarthria, secondary to
Parkinson’s Disease, and transcribing/writing down what you hear.
ACTIVITY 1: Intelligibility at word level

Word level assessment (0:00 - 2:10):

H. Listen to the word level assessment.
I. As per the standard protocol, you may only listen to the recording 1 time.
J. You can pause between words to write down the response.
K. Write down the word you think you hear.

Write the word beside the number stated. Any words you don’t understand, mark an X.
1. 18. 35.

2. 19. 36.

3. 20. 37.

4. 21. 38.

5. 22. 39.

6. 23. 40.

7. 24. 41.

8. 25. 42.

9. 26. 43.

10. 27. 44.

11. 28. 45.

12. 29. 46.

13. 30. 47.

14. 31. 48.

15. 32. 49.

16. 33. 50.

17. 34.
 L. Compare what you heard to the actual words the client read aloud (see Appendix B
on eClass).
■ Then calculate the % intelligibility score.
■ The words that you correctly identified divided by the total number of words
(50)

Task Total correctly Total words % intelligibility

identified words

Word level 50 =

ACTIVITY 2: Intelligibility at sentence level

Sentence level assessment (2:32 - 4:48):

A. Listen to the word level assessment.
B. As per the standard protocol, you may only listen to each sentence 2 times.
■ When you listen the second time, refine or correct what you wrote down, and
anything you missed, the first time.
■ This second listen is not to provide two options.
C. TIP: A good strategy is to listen to a few words, pause the recording and write down
what you heard. Repeat until you have listened to all the sentences.

Write the sentence beside the number stated by the clinician. Any words you don’t
understand, mark an XXX.

5A __________________________________________________________________________

5B __________________________________________________________________________

6A __________________________________________________________________________

6B __________________________________________________________________________

7A __________________________________________________________________________

7B __________________________________________________________________________

8A __________________________________________________________________________
8B __________________________________________________________________________

9A __________________________________________________________________________

9B __________________________________________________________________________

10A __________________________________________________________________________

10B _________________________________________________________________________

11A __________________________________________________________________________

11B __________________________________________________________________________

12A _________________________________________________________________________

12B __________________________________________________________________________

13A __________________________________________________________________________

13B __________________________________________________________________________

14A __________________________________________________________________________

14B __________________________________________________________________________

15A __________________________________________________________________________

15B __________________________________________________________________________

D. Compare what you heard to the actual sentences (see Appendix D on eClass).
■ Then calculate the % intelligibility score.
■ Count up the words that were correctly identified divided by the total number
of words (220)
■ Note: The word you hear must exactly match the word that what written/that
the client said. For example, if you heard “dies” and he said “died”, it is
wrong. Even though this is close, you will be splitting hairs if you do this for all
the words that were close.

Task Total correctly Total words % intelligibility

 identified words

Sentence level 220

Questions:
1. The unfamiliar listener who initially analyzed these recordings, received the following
intelligibility scores: Word level intelligibility: 48% (see Appendix C on eClass) and
Sentence level intelligibility: 82% (see Appendix E on eClass)
a) How does this compare to your own ratings?
b) What could lead to differences in the % intelligibility?

2. Why do you think that the client was more intelligible at sentence level than at word
level?

3. What speech system(s) do you think are impaired with this client?
a) Respiration
b) Phonation
c) Nasality
d) Articulation
e) Prosody