Browsing by Person "Ma, Joan K-Y"

Now showing 1 - 19 of 19

Acoustic speech markers for tracking changes in hypokinetic dysarthria associated with Parkinson’s Disease
(ICPLA 2023, 2023-07) Murali, Mridhula; Ma, Joan K-Y; Lickley, Robin
The application of Ultrasound Evaluation of Swallowing (USES) to the analysis of hyoid kinematics in healthy swallows
(American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2025-04-07) Ma, Joan K-Y; Wrench, Alan A.
Purpose: Using ultrasound as an adjunct tool for swallowing assessment has gained significant momentum in recent years, with research gaps in areas such as speech and language therapist–driven protocol and measurement methods. This study outlines the recording protocol of Ultrasound Evaluation of Swallowing (USES). Additionally, a set of multidimensional measurements capturing the hyoid kinematics in typical swallows was compared with previous studies to evaluate the current protocol and to develop an ultrasound database of healthy swallows to further the clinical implementation of USES. Method: Swallowing data were acquired from 41 healthy participants. Both discrete swallows (5- and 10-ml) and continuous swallows (100-ml) were analyzed. Automatic tracking of the hyoid and mandible positions using a deep neural net was applied. Six swallowing events of interest were identified for each swallow (beginning hyoid position, maximal hyoid position, hyoid advancement, hyoid retraction, peak forward velocity, and peak backward velocity), and a series of hyoid parameters characterizing the amplitude, velocity, and timing of the movement were calculated and compared across different types of swallows. Results: Results showed significant differences between continuous and discrete swallows. Continuous swallows were characterized by shorter maximal hyoid displacement, a shorter duration between the start of the swallow and the maximal displacement, a shorter total swallow duration, and lower peak velocity in both forward and backward hyoid movement. No significant difference was observed between the 5- and 10-ml swallows in hyoid movement amplitude, velocity, or duration. Conclusions: The quantification of hyoid kinematics in swallowing through the current USES recording protocol, combined with the semi-automatic extraction of hyoid function by applying a deep neural net and feature-finding algorithms, provides initial evidence to support its clinical utility in swallowing assessment. Further studies, including those of different clinical populations, to evaluate the sensitivity of the hyoid metrics in detecting changes to swallowing would support the clinical translation.
Automated assessment of hyoid movement during normal swallow using ultrasound
(Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, 2022-03-14) Ma, Joan K-Y; Wrench, Alan A.
Background The potential for using ultrasound by speech and language therapists (SLTs) as an adjunct clinical tool to assess swallowing function has received increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a recent review highlighting the need for further research on normative data, objective measurement, elicitation protocol and training. The dynamic movement of the hyoid, visible in ultrasound, is crucial in facilitating bolus transition and protection of the airway during a swallow and has shown promise as a biomarker of swallowing function.
Dysprosody and stimulus effects in Cantonese speakers with Parkinson's disease
(Taylor & Francis (Informa Healthcare), 2010) Ma, Joan K-Y; Whitehill, Tara L.; Cheung, Katherine S-K
Background: Dysprosody is a common feature in speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria. However, speech prosody varies across different types of speech materials. This raises the question of what is the most appropriate speech material for the evaluation of dysprosody. Aims: To characterize the prosodic impairment in Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria associated with Parkinson's disease, and to determine the effect of different types of speech stimuli on the perceptual rating of prosody. Methods & Procedures: Speech data in the form of sentence reading, passage reading, and monologue were collected from ten Cantonese speakers with Parkinson's disease. Perceptual analysis was conducted on ten prosodic parameters to evaluate five dimensions of prosody, based on a theoretical framework: pitch, loudness, duration, voice quality, and degree of reduction. Outcomes & Results: The results showed that the most severely affected prosodic parameters were monopitch, harsh voice, and monoloudness, followed by breathy voice and prolonged interval. Differences were noted between speakers with mild and moderate dysprosody. No statistically significant differences were found between the three types of stimuli. However, qualitative analysis revealed noticeable differences between the three stimuli in two speakers. Conclusions& Implications: The prosodic profile of Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria is similar to those of other languages (for example, English). The involvement of two new dimensions in the definition of prosody (voice quality and degree of reduction) provides additional insight in differentiating patients with mild and moderate dysarthria. Further investigation on the use of speech materials in the clinical evaluation of speech prosody in speakers with dysarthria is needed, as no single task was found to represent a patient's performance under all circumstances.
Effect of intonation on Cantonese lexical tones
(2006) Ma, Joan K-Y; Ciocca, Valter; Whitehill, Tara L.
In tonal languages, there are potential conflicts between the F0-based changes due to the coexistence of intonation and lexical tones. In the present study, the interaction of tone and intonation in Cantonese was examined using acoustic and perceptual analyses. The acoustic patterns of tones at the initial, medial, and final positions of questions and statements were measured. Results showed that intonation affects both the F0 level and contour, while the duration of the six tones varied as a function of positions within intonation contexts. All six tones at the final position of questions showed rising F0 contour, regardless of their canonical form. Listeners were overall more accurate in the identification of tones presented within the original carrier than of the same tones in isolation. However, a large proportion of tones 33, 21, 23, and 22 at the final position of questions were misperceived as tone 25 both within the original carrier and as isolated words. These results suggest that although the intonation context provided cues for correct tone identification, the intonation-induced changes in F0 contour cannot always be perceptually compensated for, resulting in some erroneous perception of the identity of Cantonese tone.
Hyoid trajectory analysis of sequential and discrete swallows in healthy individuals using Ultrasound Evaluation of Swallowing
(ESSD 2023, 2023-11) Cartney, Gemma; Ma, Joan K-Y
Intonation Contrast in Cantonese Speakers With Hypokinetic Dysarthria Associated With Parkinson's Disease
(2010) Ma, Joan K-Y; Whitehill, Tara L.; So, Susanne Y-S
Purpose: Speech produced by individuals with hypokinetic dysarthria associated with Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by a number of features including impaired speech prosody. The purpose of this study was to investigate intonation contrasts produced by this group of speakers. Method: Speech materials with a question-statement contrast were collected from 14 Cantonese speakers with PD. Twenty listeners then classified the productions as either questions or statements. Acoustic analyses of F0, duration, and intensity were conducted to determine which acoustic cues distinguished the production of questions from statements, and which cues appeared to be exploited by listeners in identifying intonational contrasts. Results: The results show that listeners identified statements with a high degree of accuracy, but the accuracy of question identification ranged from 0.56% to 96% across the 14 speakers. The speakers with PD used similar acoustic cues as nondysarthric Cantonese speakers to mark the question-statement contrast, although the contrasts were not observed in all speakers. Listeners mainly used F0 cues at the final syllable for intonation identification. Conclusion: These data contribute to the researchers' understanding of intonation marking in speakers with PD, with specific application to the production and perception of intonation in a lexical tone language.
Intrapersonal variability in hyoid movement during normal swallow
(UKSRG 2024, 2024-02) Ma, Joan K-Y; Quezada, Gabriella; Wrench, Alan A.
Motor speech disorders in Chinese
(Multilingual Matters, 2014-07-21) Whitehill, Tara L.; Ma, Joan K-Y; Lowit, Anja; Miller, Nick
Chinese, spoken by approximately 20% of the world’s population, is the most commonly spoken language in the world (Fung, 1990). There is some debate regarding whether varieties of spoken Chinese should be considered dialects or separate language. Here, we regard them as separate languages. The various languages of Chinese are considered united by a common written system, although this characterization is problematic for Cantonese, which has many colloquial expressions with no written form (Bauer & Benedict, 1997). In this chapter, we focus on two of the most common Chinese languages, Cantonese and Mandarin (Putonghua). Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong, Southern China and many overseas Chinese communities. Mandarin, also known as Standard Chinese, is the official national language of China and Taiwan, and is one of the four official languages of Singapore.
Perceptual characteristics of Cantonese hypokinetic dysarthria
(2003) Whitehill, Tara L.; Ma, Joan K-Y; Lee, Alice
The aims of this study were to provide a perceptual speech 'profile' for Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria, to examine the reliability of non-expert listeners in perceptual judgements of dysarthric speech, and to investigate cross-language differences in profiles of hypokinetic dysarthria. Participants included 19 speakers with Parkinson's disease and 10 speechlanguage pathologists who served as listeners. Listeners rated 21 speech dimensions, using seven-point interval scales. Mean intralistener agreement was 94.52% and mean interlistener reliability was 0.88 (Cronbach's alpha). Mean scale values (MSV) for each dimension ranged from 3.37 to 1.36. The perceptual profile of Cantonese hypokinetic dysarthria was largely similar to profiles for English and Japanese speakers; notable differences are discussed. Possible reasons for the relatively high reliability obtained are presented.
Say again? Individual acoustic strategies for producing a clearly-spoken minimal pair wordlist
(International Phonetic Association, 2019-08-10) Scobbie, James M.; Ma, Joan K-Y
People make their speech clearer in difficult conversational contexts using global mechanisms (e.g. “Lombard Speech”) and by targeted enhancements of linguistic constituents (“hyperspeech”). We describe production changes observed in four speakers of Scottish English who produced three repetitions of twelve CVC words: V was one of six monophthongs and C_C was either /p_p/ or /m_m/. Thus each word differed (near-) minimally from six others. In a “neutral” condition each participant read aloud from a randomised wordlist. A “clear” condition was an interactive task in which an interlocutor had to repeat back every word correctly, despite their hearing being impaired by headphone-delivered noise. If the speaker was mis-perceived by the interlocutor, the speaker tried again, until the word was correctly repeated. We describe the surprisingly speaker-specific acoustic hyperspeech effects (in vowel F1, vowel space area, and acoustic segment durations) in the clear speech. A companion paper describes the associated articulatory changes.
Say again? Individual articulatory strategies for producing a clearly-spoken minimal pair wordlist
(International Phonetic Association, 2019-08-10) Scobbie, James M.; Ma, Joan K-Y
We describe articulatory differences (lingual and labial) between two versions (neutral and clear) of a CVC wordlist of 12 targets (V = /ieaɔoʉ/; C_C = /p_p/ or /m_m/). A companion paper describes the background; the participants, materials and tasks; the impressionistic and acoustic results. Labial measures reflect vowel opening (and edge-spreading) and consonant compression using fleshpoint markers captured by head-mounted video. Consonant closure and total word duration are based on visual judgement of complete closure. Ultrasound data provides the absolute area between neutral and clear mid-sagittal tongue-surface splines at the maximum of each vowel target, and a qualitative description of tongue shape and location. Strong and systematic interspeaker variation was evident in how articulation, acoustics and functional clarity were enhanced. Some large phonologically motivated segmental hyperspeech enhancements were observed, but they were not related straightforwardly to the phonological oppositions in the material nor consistently used by all speakers. Differences in utterance initiation are also discussed.
Speech Prosody Across Stimulus Types for Individuals with Parkinson's Disease
(IOS Press, 2015) Ma, Joan K-Y; Schneider, Christine B.; Hoffmann, Rüdiger; Storch, Alexander
Up to 89% of the individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) experience speech problem over the course of the disease. Speech prosody and intelligibility are two of the most affected areas in hypokinetic dysarthria. However, assessment of these areas could potentially be problematic as speech prosody and intelligibility could be affected by the type of speech materials employed. Objective: To comparatively explore the effects of different types of speech stimulus on speech prosody and intelligibility in PD speakers. Methods: Speech prosody and intelligibility of two groups of individuals with varying degree of dysarthria resulting from PD was compared to that of a group of control speakers using sentence reading, passage reading and monologue. Acoustic analysis including measures on fundamental frequency (F0), intensity and speech rate was used to form a prosodic profile for each individual. Speech intelligibility was measured for the speakers with dysarthria using direct magnitude estimation. Results: Difference in F0 variability between the speakers with dysarthria and control speakers was only observed in sentence reading task. Difference in the average intensity level was observed for speakers with mild dysarthria to that of the control speakers. Additionally, there were stimulus effect on both intelligibility and prosodic profile. Conclusions: The prosodic profile of PD speakers was different from that of the control speakers in the more structured task, and lower intelligibility was found in less structured task. This highlighted the value of both structured and natural stimulus to evaluate speech production in PD speakers. 2015-IOS Press and the authors.
The Impact of Cerebral Palsy on the Intelligibility of Pitch-based Linguistic Contrasts
(2004) Ciocca, Valter; Whitehill, Tara L.; Ma, Joan K-Y
This study investigated the perception of three Cantonese level tones produced by speakers with dysarthria associated with cerebral palsy. Four speakers with dysarthria were selected on the basis of their distinctive patterns of fundamental frequency (F0) values observed in the level tones they produced, which showed errors in either F0 level or, F0 contour, or both. Monosyllabic words which contrasted in tone level were used as stimuli in an identification task. Five expert listeners identified the tones among the six Cantonese contrastive tones. Results showed that the tones produced by the dysarthric speakers were predominantly perceived as level tones; although a majority was perceived as the wrong level tone. The most important finding is that only the level tones produced by dysarthric speakers could be identified as rising or falling contour tones. The frequent perceptual confusion among the level tones, and the perception of contour tones, shows that a disorder in the production of pitch-based linguistic contrasts can have a substantial impact on the communication abilities of individuals with cerebral palsy.
The perception of intonation questions and statements in Cantonese
(2011) Ma, Joan K-Y; Ciocca, Valter; Whitehill, Tara L.
In tone languages there are potential conflicts in the perception of lexical tone and intonation, as both depend mainly on the differences in fundamental frequency (F0) patterns. The present study investigated the acoustic cues associated with the perception of sentences as questions or statements in Cantonese, as a function of the lexical tone in sentence final position. Cantonese listeners performed intonation identification tasks involving complete sentences, isolated final syllables, and sentences without the final syllable (carriers). Sensitivity (d0 scores) were similar for complete sentences and final syllables but were significantly lower for carriers. Sensitivity was also affected by tone identity. These findings show that the perception of questions and statements relies primarily on the F0 characteristics of the final syllables (local F0 cues). A measure of response bias (c) provided evidence for a general bias toward the perception of statements. Logistic regression analyses showed that utterances were accurately classified as questions or statements by using average F0 and F0 interval. Average F0 of carriers (global F0 cue) was also found to be a reliable secondary cue. These findings suggest that the use of F0 cues for the perception of intonation question in tonal languages is likely to be language-specific.
The tongue and lips in Lombard speech: A pilot study of vowel-space expansion
(2012-09) Scobbie, James M.; Ma, Joan K-Y; White, Joanna D.
We investigate some ways in which speech production alters to make speech sounds more intelligible to a listener. This single speaker pilot study uses ultrasound tongue imaging and videos of lips to investigate the underlying articulatory processes used to distinguish six different monophthongal vowels in Scottish English in a consistent b__p frame. Lombard speech was elicited in an interactive feedback task with a neutral condition and a condition where the listener's hearing was masked by speech babble. As a baseline, the acoustic formant space was measured, which showed Lombard effects of F1 lowering for all vowels except /i/ and an increase in intensity. In articulation, we found that in the low and back vowel targets, the hyper-articulated version has extra lowering. However, for high front vowels /i/ and /e/, the hyper-articulated version has slight blade lowering and dorsal retraction in association with raising into the palate. The vowel // has very little change, but seems to fit in the high front set. Lip protrusion and spreading are enhanced, appropriately. Despite the frame being identical in each word, qualitatively the speaker enhanced the /b/ but not the /p/, supporting models in which a CV unit is planned holistically in speech production.
Translating ultrasound into clinical practice for the assessment of swallowing and laryngeal function: A speech and language pathology-led consensus study
(Springer, 2022-02-24) Allen, Jodi E.; Clunie, Gemma; Ma, Joan K-Y; Coffey, Margaret; Winiker, Katharina; Richmond, Sally; Lowell, Soren Y.; Volkmer, Anna
Ultrasound (US) has an emerging evidence base for the assessment of swallowing and laryngeal function. Accessibility and technological advances support the use of US as a clinical assessment tool; however, there is insufficient evidence to support its translation into clinical practice. This study aimed to establish consensus on the priorities for translation of US into clinical practice for the assessment of swallowing and laryngeal function. Nominal Group Technique (NGT) was used as a formal method of consensus development. Clinicians and academics, all members of an international US working group, were invited to participate in the study. Two NGT meetings were held, where participants silently generated and then shared ideas. Participants anonymously ranked items. Rankings were aggregated before participants re-ranked items in order of priority. Discussions regarding rankings were recorded and transcribed to inform analysis. Member-checking with participants informed the final analysis. Participants (n = 15) were speech and language pathologists, physiotherapists and sonographers representing six countries. Fifteen items were identified and prioritised 1–13 (including two equally ranked items). Reliability, validity and normative data emerged as key areas for research while development of training protocols and engagement with stakeholders were considered vital to progressing US into practice. Analysis revealed common themes that might be addressed together in research, in addition to the ranked priority. A measured approach to the translation of US into clinical practice will enable effective implementation of this tool. Priorities may evolve as clinical and professional contexts shift, but this study provides a framework to advance research and clinical practice in this field.
Ultrasound Evaluation of Swallowing in People with Neurological Diseases – A Pilot Study
(ESSD 2023, 2023-11) Ma, Joan K-Y; Quezada, Gabriella; Allen, Jodi, E.; Mossey- Gaston, Corinne; Wrench, Alan A.
Using glossogram to investigate tongue movement in Ultrasound Evaluation of Swallowing
(ESSD 2023, 2023-11) Ma, Joan K-Y; Wrench, Alan A.