Joan Ma

Joan Ma
Queen Margaret University | QMU · Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences

Doctor of Philosophy

About

21
Publications
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306
Citations

Publications

Publications (21)
Article
Full-text available
Background: The potential for using ultrasound by speech and language therapists (SLTs) as an adjunct clinical tool to assess swallowing function has received increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a recent review highlighting the need for further research on normative data, objective measurement, elicitation protocol and training....
Article
Full-text available
Ultrasound (US) has an emerging evidence base for the assessment of swallowing and laryngeal function. Accessibility and technological advances support the use of US as a clinical assessment tool; however, there is insufficient evidence to support its translation into clinical practice. This study aimed to establish consensus on the priorities for...
Article
Full-text available
Background Up to 89% of the individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) experience speech problem over the course of the disease. Speech prosody and intelligibility are two of the most affected areas in hypokinetic dysarthria. However, assessment of these areas could potentially be problematic as speech prosody and intelligibility could be affected b...
Technical Report
Full-text available
We investigate some ways in which speech production alters to make speech sounds more intelligible to a listener. This single speaker pilot study uses ultrasound tongue imaging and videos of lips to investigate the underlying articulatory processes used to distinguish six different monophthongal vowels in Scottish English in a consistent b__p frame...
Article
In tone languages there are potential conflicts in the perception of lexical tone and intonation, as both depend mainly on the differences in fundamental frequency (F0) patterns. The present study investigated the acoustic cues associated with the perception of sentences as questions or statements in Cantonese, as a function of the lexical tone in...
Conference Paper
The aim of this study was to explore the prosodic characteristics of speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD) in the marking of intonations. Twenty-four German PD speakers with either mild or moderate degree of dysarthria were compared with twelve non-dysarthric control speakers on the production of imperatives, questions and statements. Acoustic ana...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose Speech produced by individuals with hypokinetic dysarthria associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by a number of features including impaired speech prosody. The purpose of this study was to investigate intonation contrasts produced by this group of speakers. Method Speech materials with a question–statement contrast were...
Article
Dysprosody is a common feature in speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria. However, speech prosody varies across different types of speech materials. This raises the question of what is the most appropriate speech material for the evaluation of dysprosody. To characterize the prosodic impairment in Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria associ...
Conference Paper
The aim of this study was to investigate lexical tone production in Cantonese speakers associated with Parkinson's disease (PD speakers). The effect of intonation on the production of lexical tone was also examined. Speech data was collected from five Cantonese PD speakers. Speech materials consisted of targets contrasting in tones, embedded in dif...
Conference Paper
This preliminary study aimed to apply the command-response model to the analysis of disrupted intonation patterns in speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD). Three Cantonese PD speakers with mild prosodic impairment participated. The speech stimuli were 36 utterances (questions and statements). Productions were analyzed using the model parameters (b...
Conference Paper
This study aimed at identifying acoustic cues in intonation perception in Cantonese. Carriers and final syllables contrasting in intonation were selected from a previous study in which listeners identified the stimuli as either questions or statements. Acoustic analyses were used to determine the F0, duration and intensity variation of the carriers...
Article
In tonal languages, there are potential conflicts between the FO-based changes due to the coexistence of intonation and lexical tones. In the present study, the interaction of tone and intonation in Cantonese was examined using acoustic and perceptual analyses. The acoustic patterns of tones at the initial, medial, and final positions of questions...
Article
The aim of this study was to investigate intonation patterns in Cantonese using a quantitative approach. The command- response model was employed to explore the differences between intonations, and the effects of lexical tone on fundamental frequency (F0) contours of intonation. Two intonation types (statements and questions), with six tonal contra...
Article
This study investigated the perception of three Cantonese level tones produced by speakers with dysarthria associated with cerebral palsy. Four speakers with dysarthria were selected on the basis of their distinctive patterns of fundamental frequency (F0) values observed in the level tones they produced, which showed errors in either F0 level or, F...
Article
The aims of this study were to provide a perceptual speech 'profile' for Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria, to examine the reliability of non-expert listeners in perceptual judgements of dysarthric speech, and to investigate cross-language differences in profiles of hypokinetic dysarthria. Participants included 19 speakers with Parkins...
Article
This study investigated the influence of intonation patterns on lexical tone identity. The use of intonation in tonal languages poses an interesting research question since changes in the fundamental frequency (F0) of phonation serve two separate functions at the same time: marking of lexical meaning at the syllabic level and signaling intonation p...

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