Comparison of speech intelligibility of patients with Huntington's Disease between familiar and unfamiliar listeners

Abstract

Familiar listeners may overestimate the intelligibility of speakers with dysarthria. The purpose of this study is to compare speech intelligibility for patients with Huntington's Disease between an experienced neurologist evaluator using the Universal Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS), and unfamiliar listeners using the Assessment of Intelligibility of Dysarthric Speech protocol (AIDS). 15 patients were audio recorded speaking 10 words and 5 phrases from the AIDS protocol. Unfamiliar listeners were instructed to write each word/phrase on a record form, as they were able to understand them. Each response was scored for accuracy (i.e., complete word or words/sentence). Participants with a UHDRS rating of 0 (normal speech) ranged between 81-93% intelligibility, those with a UHDRS of 1 (unclear, no need to repeat) 49-93%, those with a UHDRS of 2 (must repeat to be understood) 66-77%, and one participant with a UHDRS of 3 (mostly incomprehensible) scored 37% intelligibility by unfamiliar listeners.