Cler Gabriel J, Lien Yu-An S, Braden Maia N, Mittelman Talia, Downing Kerri, Stepp Cara E
Graduate Program for Neuroscience-Computational Neuroscience, Boston University, MADepartment of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, MA.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, MA.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2016 Oct 1;59(5):1018-1024. doi: 10.1044/2016_JSLHR-S-15-0407.
This article describes the development and initial validation of an objective measure of nasal air emission (NAE) using nasal accelerometry.
Nasal acceleration and nasal airflow signals were simultaneously recorded while an expert speech language pathologist modeled NAEs at a variety of severity levels. In addition, microphone and nasal accelerometer signals were collected during the production of /pɑpɑpɑpɑ/ speech utterances by 25 children with and without cleft palate. Fourteen inexperienced raters listened to the microphone signals from the pediatric speakers and rated the samples for the severity of NAE using direct magnitude estimation. Mean listener ratings were compared to a novel quantitative measurement of NAE derived from the nasal acceleration signals.
Correlation between the nasal acceleration energy measure and the measured nasal airflow was high (r = .87). Correlation between the measure and auditory-perceptual ratings was moderate (r = .49).
The measure presented here is quantitative and noninvasive, and the required hardware is inexpensive ($150). Future studies will include speakers with a wider range of NAE severity and etiology, including cleft palate, hearing impairment, or dysarthria. Further development will also involve validation of the measure against airflow measures across subjects.
本文描述了一种使用鼻腔加速度测量法对鼻腔气流排放（NAE）进行客观测量的方法的开发及初步验证。
在一名专业言语语言病理学家模拟不同严重程度的NAE时，同时记录鼻腔加速度和鼻腔气流信号。此外，在25名有或无腭裂的儿童发出/pɑpɑpɑpɑ/语音时，收集麦克风和鼻腔加速度计信号。14名没有经验的评估者听取了儿童说话者的麦克风信号，并使用直接量值估计法对样本的NAE严重程度进行评分。将评估者的平均评分与从鼻腔加速度信号得出的一种新的NAE定量测量结果进行比较。
鼻腔加速度能量测量值与测量的鼻腔气流之间的相关性很高（r = 0.87）。该测量值与听觉感知评分之间的相关性为中等（r = 0.49）。
本文提出的测量方法是定量且无创的，所需硬件价格低廉（150美元）。未来的研究将纳入NAE严重程度和病因范围更广的说话者，包括腭裂、听力障碍或构音障碍患者。进一步的开发还将涉及针对不同受试者的气流测量结果对该测量方法进行验证。
