HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) CEUs available Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal My Folders Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Bunton, K. Articles by Kent, J. F. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Bunton, K. Articles by Kent, J. F. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Listener Agreement for Auditory-Perceptual Ratings of Dysarthria

Joseph R. Duffy
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN

John C. Rosenbek
William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital, Madison, WI

Jane F. Kent
Waisman Center

Contact author: Kate Bunton, who is now with the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210071, Tucson, AZ 85721-0071. E-mail: bunton{at}u.arizona.edu.

Purpose: Darley, Aronson, and Brown (1969a, 1969b) detailed methods and results of auditory-perceptual assessment for speakers with dysarthrias of varying etiology. They reported adequate listener reliability for use of the rating system as a tool for differential diagnosis, but several more recent studies have raised concerns about listener reliability using this approach.

Method: In the present study, the authors examined intrarater and interrater agreement for perceptual ratings of 47 speakers with various dysarthria types by 2 listener groups (inexperienced and experienced). The entire set of perceptual features proposed by Darley et al. was rated based on a 40-s conversational speech sample.

Results: No differences in levels of agreement were found between the listener groups. Agreement was within 1 scale value or better for 67% of the pairwise comparisons. Levels of agreement were lower when the average rating fell in the mid-range of the scale compared with samples that had an average rating near either of the scale endpoints; agreement was above chance level. No significant differences in agreement were found between the perceptual features.

Discussion: The levels of listener agreement that were found indicate that auditory-perceptual ratings show promise during clinical assessment for identifying salient features of dysarthria for speakers with various etiologies.

KEY WORDS: auditory-perceptual ratings, dysarthria, listener agreement

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?