Teleassessment has become an invaluable tool in speech-language pathology, especially in the wake of global events that limit in-person interactions. A recent study titled "Comparison of In-Person and Online Recordings in the Clinical Teleassessment of Speech Production: A Pilot Study" offers critical insights into the reliability of various speech parameters when assessed online. This blog will explore how practitioners can improve their teleassessment skills by implementing findings from this study.
Key Findings from the Study
The study compared three types of recordings: high-quality in-person recordings, standard-quality in-person recordings, and online recordings via Zoom. The primary focus was on speech production parameters such as intelligibility, articulation, speech rate, and voice measures.
- Speech Rate: The study found excellent reliability in measuring speech rate (words per second) for tasks like repeating the days of the week and diadochokinesia (DDK) when using online recordings. However, sentence reading showed slightly lower reliability, suggesting that precise segmentation is crucial.
- Voice Measures: Mean fundamental frequency (f0) was reliably measured online, but other voice parameters like jitter, shimmer, and harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR) showed poor reliability. High-quality in-person recordings remain essential for these measures.
- Intelligibility and Articulation: These perceptual measures showed poor reliability in online recordings. This indicates that speech signal distortions caused by online compression can affect the accuracy of word identification and articulation error detection.
- Maximal Phonation Time (MPT): This measure was more reliably computed using in-person recordings, even with standard-quality equipment, than online recordings.
- Prosodic Contrast: The study found that prosodic contrast was not reliably computed in online recordings but was fairly reliable with standard-quality in-person recordings.
Practical Implications for Clinicians
Based on these findings, clinicians can take several steps to improve their teleassessment practices:
- Use High-Quality Equipment: For critical voice measures, ensure that high-quality microphones and recording devices are used. Standard laptop microphones can suffice for some tasks but not all.
- Segment Carefully: Pay extra attention to segmenting speech samples, especially for tasks like sentence reading and prosodic contrast, to improve reliability.
- Supplement Online Assessments: Where possible, supplement online assessments with in-person recordings to cross-verify critical parameters.
- Continuous Training: Engage in continuous training and stay updated with the latest guidelines and best practices for teleassessment.
Encouraging Further Research
The study highlights the need for further research, particularly in developing normative data for online assessments and exploring the impact of demographic variables on speech sample analyses. Clinicians are encouraged to contribute to this growing field by participating in or conducting their own research studies.
To read the original research paper, please follow this link: Comparison of In-Person and Online Recordings in the Clinical Teleassessment of Speech Production: A Pilot Study.
