[Validation of an automatic speech analysis in children with isolated cleft palate].

BACKGROUND: Following surgical repair of cleft lip and palate, hearing and speech and language development are important issues for the continued care of affected childhood and adolescent patients. Therefore, PEAKS (Program for Evaluation and Analysis of all Kinds of Speech Disorders) was developed in order to rate speech intelligibility automatically and reduce the time required for diagnostics. PEAKS is based on a speech recognition system and was extended to incorporate a speaker model. This investigation validated PEAKS for isolated cleft palate. METHODS: From each of the 39 children with isolated cleft palate (3.1-14.5 years), 99 word productions were recorded digitally and analyzed-once "subjectively" by five experts and five nonexperts; once "objectively" using PEAKS. RESULTS: The automatic speech recognition system and the experts arrive at similar results with regard to speech intelligibility. The expert and nonexpert ratings differ significantly from each other. Within the group of nonexperts, a weak interrater reliability demonstrates the uncertainty associated with their ratings. CONCLUSION: PEAKS delivers reliable and representative results with regard to speech intelligibility among children and adolescents with isolated cleft palate. The automatic measurement of speech quality in children and adolescents with isolated cleft palate is possible.