title: Contributors to Intelligibility in Preschool- Aged Children with Cerebral Palsy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We investigated the contribution of vowel space, articulation rate, maximum utterance length, and language skills to intelligibility in 30-36 month old children with CP. We also examined differences among variables for 3 subgroups of children with CP and a small group of typically developing (TD) children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nineteen children with CP and 5 TD children provided speech samples, and 120 listeners transcribed the speech samples. Acoustic analysis of temporal and vowel spectral measures was completed on single-word productions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Vowel space was the only variable that made a significant and independent contribution to intelligibility, though all variables collectively accounted for 74% of the variance in intelligibility scores. TD children tended to have larger vowel spaces, than children with CP, even among children with CP who had intelligibility scores within the range of TD children.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Of children with CP who were able to talk at 30-36 months of age, 60% had clinical speech or language deficits. Production of vowels appears to make an important contribution to intelligibility; and for many children with CP, considerable deficits in intelligibility may be evident by the age of 3. Early interventions targeting both speech and language may improve intelligibility and functional communication skills.
authors.affiliation: University of Wisconsin - Madison Department of Communicative Disorders Waisman Center.
authors.forename: Caitlin M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: DuHadway
authors.affiliation: University of Wisconsin - Madison Department of Communicative Disorders Waisman Center.
authors.forename: Katherine C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Hustad
keywords: cerebral palsy; dysarthria; intelligibility; pediatrics