Bilingual Perception of Dysarthric Speech.
Purpose: Despite the prevalence of bilingualism, research on the understanding of disordered speech has focused almost exclusively on monolingual populations. Hypothesis-driven studies with dysarthric speech have revealed that greater vocabulary knowledge and working memory support understanding in...
| Published in: | Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research Vol. 68; no. 11; pp. 5278 - 5292 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
| Format: | Article |
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American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
Nov2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=189241807&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 189241807 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 10924388 1SM jtl: Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research issn: 10924388 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2025 vid: 68 iid: 11 pid: 42 pub: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association artinfo: ui: 189241807 10.1044/2025_JSLHR-25-00288 ppf: 5278 ppct: 14 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 951KB tig: atl: Bilingual Perception of Dysarthric Speech. aug: au: Tetzloff, Katerina A. Fletcher, Annalise R. Lansford, Kaitlin L. Barrett, Tyson S. Borrie, Stephanie A. affil: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Utah State University, Logan School of Communication Science and Disorders, Florida State University, Tallahassee su: Arizona Intellect Task performance Multilingualism Linguistics Memory Vocabulary Written communication Statistical correlation Dysarthria Data analysis Research funding Listening Intelligibility of speech Descriptive statistics Statistics Research Speech perception Data analysis software sug: subj: Intellect Task performance Multilingualism Linguistics Memory Vocabulary Written communication Arizona Statistical correlation Dysarthria Data analysis Research funding Listening Intelligibility of speech Descriptive statistics Statistics Research Speech perception Data analysis software ab: Purpose: Despite the prevalence of bilingualism, research on the understanding of disordered speech has focused almost exclusively on monolingual populations. Hypothesis-driven studies with dysarthric speech have revealed that greater vocabulary knowledge and working memory support understanding in monolingual listeners. However, whether these explanatory models generalize to bilinguals, who differ in both cognitive and linguistic profiles, is unknown. This study examined whether bilingualism affords a perceptual advantage in understanding dysarthric speech, and whether working memory and vocabulary knowledge contribute to that advantage. Method: Ninety-four listeners, categorized as monolinguals, early bilinguals, or late bilinguals, completed a speech perception task where they transcribed phrases produced by speakers with dysarthria. They also completed working memory and vocabulary assessments. Results: Relative to monolingual and late bilinguals, early bilinguals had equivalent working memory scores, lower vocabulary scores, and reduced intelligibility scores when perceiving dysarthric speech. Vocabulary knowledge, but not working memory, predicted intelligibility scores across all groups. A post hoc correlation analysis within the early bilingual group further revealed that an earlier age of exposure to English was associated with higher intelligibility scores, suggesting that age of language exposure plays a critical role in shaping the linguistic systems that support perception of disordered speech. Conclusions: These findings underscore the importance of vocabulary knowledge and language experience, over working memory, in facilitating understanding of disordered speech. They also highlight the need to refine models of disordered speech perception to account for variability across listener populations, in order to more fully capture the relative contributions of cognitive and linguistic mechanisms. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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