Exploring Intelligibility in Tracheoesophageal Speech: A Descriptive Analysis

Despite literature that suggests tracheoesophageal (TE) voice restoration to have the highest intelligibility of the three alaryngeal modes of speech, previous studies have shown that TE speech is less intelligible than “normal” speech. It is important to understand where problems related to intelligibility currently exist in order for members of the rehabilitation team to provide the best therapy/prostheses to each individual using TE speech as a mode of communication. This study evaluated the intelligibility of 15 male and female tracheoesophageal speakers. Eighteen normal-hearing, naive, young adult listeners assessed digital voice samples of 15 adult male and female TE speakers. Listeners made judgments by transcribing the monosyllabic words heard into English orthographics. Confusion matrices were then generated based on the transcriptions. The data were analyzed to determine overall intelligibility and to determine if patterns of increased or decreased intelligibility existed based on manner of classification