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How well speakers with adductor laryngeal dystonia are understood
What is it about?
Adductor laryngeal dystonia is a rare neurological voice disorder that causes intermittent voice breaks while speaking. Our study assessed how this voice impairment, across a wide range of severities, affect a person's ability to be understood in noisy, real-world environments.
Why is it important?
Our findings show that adductor laryngeal dystonia reduces how well speech is understood in noisy environments, and that individuals with more severe voice impairment experience greater reductions in intelligibility. Speakers with this condition differ from those with more common voice disorders because their speech is disrupted by intermittent voice breaks, and traditional voice therapy does not improve their primary symptoms. These results suggest that speech intelligibility should be considered when counseling individuals with adductor laryngeal dystonia and when developing treatment strategies aimed at improving communication in everyday environments.