Automatic Speech Recognition Systems for the Evaluation of Voice and Speech Disorders in Head and Neck Cancer

In patients suffering from head and neck cancer, speech intelligibility is often restricted. For assessment and outcome measurements, automatic speech recognition systems have previously been shown to be appropriate for objective and quick evaluation of intelligibility. In this study we investigate the applicability of the method to speech disorders caused by head and neck cancer. Intelligibility was quantified by speech recognition on recordings of a standard text read by 41 German laryngectomized patients with cancer of the larynx or hypopharynx and 49 German patients who had suffered from oral cancer. The speech recognition provides the percentage of correctly recognized words of a sequence, that is, the word recognition rate. Automatic evaluation was compared to perceptual ratings by a panel of experts and to an age-matched control group. Both patient groups showed significantly lower word recognition rates than the control group. Automatic speech recognition yielded word recognition rates which complied with experts' evaluation of intelligibility on a significant level. Automatic speech recognition serves as a good means with low effort to objectify and quantify the most important aspect of pathologic speech—the intelligibility. The system was successfully applied to voice and speech disorders.