Toward clinical application of landmark-based speech analysis: Landmark expression in normal adult speech

The goal of clinical speech analysis is to describe abnormalities in speech production that affect a speaker's intelligibility. Landmark analysis identifies abrupt changes in a speech signal and classifies them according to their acoustic profiles. These acoustic markers, called landmarks, may help describe intelligibility deficits in disordered speech. As a first step toward clinical application of landmark analysis, the present study describes expression of landmarks in normal speech. Results of the study revealed that syllabic, glottal, and burst landmarks consist of 94% of all landmarks, and suggest the effect of gender needs to be considered for the analysis.