Rrent and Arvaniti’s results thus highlight the possibility that metrics

Rrent and Arvaniti’s results thus highlight the possibility that metrics might not pick up on rhythmic differences that are perceptually evident. However, they also suggest that this problem could be solved by crosschecking results with an additional articulatory analysis of the participants’ speech. This conclusion does not only impact on research methods but also has significant implications for effective clinical practice. For example, it has already been discussed that syllable deletion could make the rhythm metric suggest a more syllable-timed rhythm. This result sits well with previous research, particularly into ataxic dysarthria, which is characterized as displaying equalized syllable durations [2,20,28]. However, this is often assumed to be due to a lengthening of unstressed syllables and not syllable deletion. The correct identification of the underlying reason for the observed acoustic and even perceptual findings is very important for clinical decision-making, as the treatment strategies for addressing inappropriate vowel length are distinct from those maximizing articulatory accuracy and wrong assumptions made about the nature of the problem could lead to ineffective treatment of the disorder. These data furthermore highlight that it is important to consider the overall speech context in the detailed evaluation of the data rather than particular errors in isolation. As indicated in figure 2, both speaker (b) and speaker (c) lengthened unstressed syllables (e.g. `you’, speaker (b), or `Tony’, speaker (c)). However, there is an important distinction between the patterns produced by these two speakers. Speaker (c) inappropriately lengthened a weak syllable, giving `To-‘ and `-ny’ equal emphasis (cf. `swimming’ in figure 3a), and thus presented with the syllable-timed speech commonly associated with ataxic dysarthria. On the other hand, the changes in speaker (b) could at least partly be attributed to phrase-final lengthening as she inserted a pause after `you’ (figure 2). Again Talmapimod web different treatment approaches would be warranted depending on the reason for the unnatural lengthening of the unstressed syllable. That is, treatment might focus on phrasing and pause placement in speaker (b) to reduce the amount of intrusive phrase-final lengthening, whereas speaker (c) might benefit more from exercises aimed at producing appropriate distinctions between stressed and unstressed syllables. Further problems specific to clinical data were highlighted by the speech patterns of speaker (d) (figure 2) who fused several words into one long vowel. These data highlight that segmentation issues have to be considered carefully when applying rhythm metrics to disordered populations: the choice of data labelling TGR-1202 site method impacted on whether this speaker was described as a producing a higher or lower degree of variability between successive syllables. It could even be argued that the application of a metric was not appropriate in her case. While she represented an extreme example of how disordered speech features might require methodological adjustments in order for rhythm metrics to remain valid reflections of speech timing, there might have been other more subtle issues that also had an impact on the acoustic results, potentially providing furtherexplanations for the lack of group differences observed for the rhythm metrics. Again a more detailed analysis of the speech data in addition to acoustic metrics and perceptual analysis might help to highl.Rrent and Arvaniti’s results thus highlight the possibility that metrics might not pick up on rhythmic differences that are perceptually evident. However, they also suggest that this problem could be solved by crosschecking results with an additional articulatory analysis of the participants’ speech. This conclusion does not only impact on research methods but also has significant implications for effective clinical practice. For example, it has already been discussed that syllable deletion could make the rhythm metric suggest a more syllable-timed rhythm. This result sits well with previous research, particularly into ataxic dysarthria, which is characterized as displaying equalized syllable durations [2,20,28]. However, this is often assumed to be due to a lengthening of unstressed syllables and not syllable deletion. The correct identification of the underlying reason for the observed acoustic and even perceptual findings is very important for clinical decision-making, as the treatment strategies for addressing inappropriate vowel length are distinct from those maximizing articulatory accuracy and wrong assumptions made about the nature of the problem could lead to ineffective treatment of the disorder. These data furthermore highlight that it is important to consider the overall speech context in the detailed evaluation of the data rather than particular errors in isolation. As indicated in figure 2, both speaker (b) and speaker (c) lengthened unstressed syllables (e.g. `you’, speaker (b), or `Tony’, speaker (c)). However, there is an important distinction between the patterns produced by these two speakers. Speaker (c) inappropriately lengthened a weak syllable, giving `To-‘ and `-ny’ equal emphasis (cf. `swimming’ in figure 3a), and thus presented with the syllable-timed speech commonly associated with ataxic dysarthria. On the other hand, the changes in speaker (b) could at least partly be attributed to phrase-final lengthening as she inserted a pause after `you’ (figure 2). Again different treatment approaches would be warranted depending on the reason for the unnatural lengthening of the unstressed syllable. That is, treatment might focus on phrasing and pause placement in speaker (b) to reduce the amount of intrusive phrase-final lengthening, whereas speaker (c) might benefit more from exercises aimed at producing appropriate distinctions between stressed and unstressed syllables. Further problems specific to clinical data were highlighted by the speech patterns of speaker (d) (figure 2) who fused several words into one long vowel. These data highlight that segmentation issues have to be considered carefully when applying rhythm metrics to disordered populations: the choice of data labelling method impacted on whether this speaker was described as a producing a higher or lower degree of variability between successive syllables. It could even be argued that the application of a metric was not appropriate in her case. While she represented an extreme example of how disordered speech features might require methodological adjustments in order for rhythm metrics to remain valid reflections of speech timing, there might have been other more subtle issues that also had an impact on the acoustic results, potentially providing furtherexplanations for the lack of group differences observed for the rhythm metrics. Again a more detailed analysis of the speech data in addition to acoustic metrics and perceptual analysis might help to highl.