# Enhancing efficacy of speech modification strategies for pediatric dysarthria

> **NIH NIH R21** · NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $157,000

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 Dysarthria is a neuromotor speech disorder that negatively impacts functional
communication and social participation for over 50% of children with cerebral palsy (CP).
Despite its prevalence among children with CP, little evidence exists to guide treatment of
dysarthria in children. Global speech modification strategies (e.g., using a loud voice or slow
rate) have shown promise for improving intelligibility in this population; however, children with
CP are heterogeneous in their communication skills and motor abilities, and they do not all
benefit from these strategies. The effectiveness of speech modification strategies for children
with CP is currently limited by a lack of research comparing the efficacy of different strategies
and a poor understanding of how these strategies lead to intelligibility gains. The proposed
research aims to address this need by comparing the efficacy of three speech modification
strategies, and by identifying the “key ingredients” underlying intelligibility gains across different
speech modification conditions. Specific Aim 1 will examine the effect of emphatic stress, a
novel, local speech modification strategy on intelligibility and speech naturalness for
adolescents with CP, compared to two global speech modification strategies (loud speech and
slow rate). We hypothesize that the emphatic stress strategy will yield equivalent or greater
intelligibility gains and higher naturalness ratings compared to the global loud and slow
strategies. Specific Aim 2 will identify quantitative speech measures that best predict within-child
changes in intelligibility across speaking conditions. We hypothesize that acoustic and kinematic
measures of articulation will better predict within-child intelligibility gains than acoustic measures
of task performance. The proposed research will provide information that has the potential to
lead to development of a novel, emphatic stress intervention strategy for children with
dysarthria. In addition, this research has important implications for improving theoretical
understanding of factors that directly contribute to speech intelligibility gains, and could be
leveraged to improve individualization of treatment techniques and maximize speech outcomes
for children with dysarthria secondary to CP.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10813147
- **Project number:** 5R21DC019721-03
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Kristen M. Allison
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $157,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-04-15 → 2026-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10813147

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10813147, Enhancing efficacy of speech modification strategies for pediatric dysarthria (5R21DC019721-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10813147. Licensed CC0.

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