Relationship of acoustic parameters and perceptual ratings of esophageal speech.

For 10 male and 10 female esophageal speakers selected acoustic and perceptual dimensions of esophageal speech were investigated to determine the intercorrelations of the following measures: intelligibility, articulation, rate, fundamental frequency, mean relative intensity, and effectiveness. Results indicate that only articulation and effectiveness were significantly correlated with intelligibility, whereas measures of intelligibility, articulation, rate, fundamental frequency, and mean relative intensity were all significantly correlated with effectiveness ratings.