Speech rate perception in audios in Easy Language amongst individuals with intellectual disabilities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2025.e106792Palavras-chave:
intellectual disability, Easy Language, speech rate, perceptionResumo
Easy Language is a simplified language variety designed to enhance accessibility for individuals with comprehension difficulties. While its application in audiovisual contexts—such as podcasts and radio news produced in various languages—has garnered interest, guidelines for its oral and audio use remain limited. One common recommendation is to adopt a slower speech rate, yet specific guidance is rarely provided. Furthermore, it must be considered that speech rate perception is influenced by various factors, including language-specific norms and cognitive load, complicating the development of universal recommendations. This intralingual study investigates speech rate perception among 35 native Catalan-speaking individuals with intellectual disabilities, evaluating responses to Easy Language recordings in Catalan at four speech rates: 130 wpm, 150 wpm, 170 wpm, and 190 wpm. Participants rated the perceived speed of each recording on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from “too slow” to “too fast”. Results revealed two distinct patterns: one subgroup found all speech rates acceptable, while the other exhibited greater variability in ratings, reflecting a more refined perception or reduced acceptability of certain speeds. A significant age difference was observed between these subgroups, though no differences were identified in cognitive performance, as measured by Raven scores.
Referências
Ainsworth, W. A. (1974). The Influence of Precursive Sequences on the Perception of Synthesized Vowels. Language and Speech, 17(2), 103–109. https://doi.org/10.1177/002383097401700201
Albaladejo Mur, M. (2020). Presentacions orals en públic. Diputació de Barcelona.
Baese-Berk, M. M., Dilley, L. C., Henry, M. J., Vinke, L., & Banzina, E. (2019). Not just a function of function words: Distal speech rate influences perception of prosodically weak syllables. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 81(2), 571–589. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-018-1626-4
Bilker, W. B., Hansen, J. A., Brensinger, C. M., Richard, J., Gur, R. E., & Gur, R. C. (2012). Development of Abbreviated Nine-Item Forms of the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices Test. Assessment, 19(3), 354–369. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191112446655
Block, R. A., Zakay, D., & Hancock, P. A. (1998). Human aging and duration judgments: A meta-analytic review. Psychology and Aging, 13(4), 584–596. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.13.4.584
Bond, R. N., Simpson, S., & Feldstein, S. (1988). Relative and Absolute Judgments of Speech Rate from Masked and Content-Standard Stimuli: The Influence of Vocal Frequency and Intensity. Human Communication Research, 14(4), 548–568. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1988.tb00167.x
Bosker, H. R. (2016). Our own speech rate influences speech perception. Speech Prosody 2016, 227–231. https://doi.org/10.21437/SpeechProsody.2016-47
Bosker, H. R., Peeters, D., & Holler, J. (2020). How visual cues to speech rate influence speech perception. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73(10), 1523–1536. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021820914564
Bosker, H. R., Reinisch, E., & Sjerps, M. J. (2017). Cognitive load makes speech sound fast, but does not modulate acoustic context effects. Journal of Memory and Language, 94, 166–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2016.12.002
Brown, E. K. (2023). Cumulative exposure to fast speech conditions duration of content words in English. Language Variation and Change, 35(2), 153–173. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394523000157
Cabero Almenara, J., & Llorente Cejudo, M. del C. (2013). La aplicación del juicio de experto como técnica de evaluación de las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (TIC). Revista Eduweb, 7(2), 11–22.
Canals, R., Esteban, M., & Ribas, J. (2006). La lectura a les comarques de Girona. Lletres. Revista de Girona, 234, 37–43.
Cantin, M., & Ríos, A. (1991). Análisis experimental del Ritmo de la lengua catalana. Anuario Del Seminario de Filología Vasca “Julio de Urquijo”, 25(2), 487–513.
Castro Robaina, I., & Amigo Extremera, J. J. (2024). El principio de cohesión textual en la Lectura Fácil. Un análisis de los procedimientos de intervención en la práctica profesional de adaptación de textos de tipología jurídico-administrativa. In C. Jiménez Hurtado & L. Carlucci (Eds.), Lectura Fácil: Procesos y entornos de una nueva modalidad de traducción (pp. 89–106). Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. https://doi.org/10.20420/1785.2024.744
Chen, A., Kumar, S. E., Varkhedi, R., & Murphy, D. H. (2024). The Effect of Playback Speed and Distractions on the Comprehension of Audio and Audio-Visual Materials. Educational Psychology Review, 36(3), 79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09917-7
Coupé, C., Oh, Y. M., Dediu, D., & Pellegrino, F. (2019). Different languages, similar encoding efficiency: Comparable information rates across the human communicative niche. Science Advances, 5(9), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594
Crown, C. L., & Feldstein, S. (1991). The perception of speech rate from the sound-silence patterns of monologues. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 20(1), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01076919
Departament de Drets Socials i Inclusió. (2023). DECRET 209/2023, de 28 de novembre, pel qual s’aprova el Codi d’accessibilitat de Catalunya. Generalitat de Catalunya.
Dietrich, S., Hertrich, I., & Ackermann, H. (2013). Ultra-fast speech comprehension in blind subjects engages primary visual cortex, fusiform gyrus, and pulvinar – a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. BMC Neuroscience, 14(1), 74. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-14-74
Dilley, L. C., Morrill, T. H., & Banzina, E. (2013). New tests of the distal speech rate effect: examining cross-linguistic generalization. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.01002
Dilley, L. C., & Pitt, M. A. (2010). Altering Context Speech Rate Can Cause Words to Appear or Disappear. Psychological Science, 21(11), 1664–1670. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610384743
Domino, G., & Domino, M. L. (2006). Testing in a Cross-Cultural Context. In G. Domino & M. L. Domino (Eds.), Psychological Testing: An Introduction (pp. 272–296). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813757
Escobar-Pérez, J., & Cuervo-Martínez, Á. (2008). Validez de contenido y juicio de expertos: una aproximación a su utilización. Avances En Medición, 6, 27–36.
Feldstein, S., & Bond, R. N. (1981). Perception of Speech Rate as a Function of Vocal Intensity and Frequency. Language and Speech, 24(4), 387–394. https://doi.org/10.1177/002383098102400408
Fujisaki, H., Nakamura, K., & Imoto, T. (1975). Auditory perception of duration of speech and non-speech stimuli. In G. Fant & M. Tatham (Eds.), Auditory perception of duration of speech and non-speech stimuli (pp. 197–219). Academic Press.
Gabay, Y., Najjar, I.-J., & Reinisch, E. (2019). Another Temporal Processing Deficit in Individuals with Developmental Dyslexia: The Case of Normalization for Speaking Rate. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62(7), 2171–2184. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_JSLHR-S-18-0264
Gabay, Y., Reinisch, E., Even, D., Binur, N., & Hadad, B.-S. (2024). Intact Utilization of Contextual Information in Speech Categorization in Autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 54(10), 3837–3853. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-06106-3
Gálvez, R. H., Gauder, L., Luque, J., & Gravano, A. (2020). A unifying framework for modeling acoustic/prosodic entrainment: definition and evaluation on two large corpora. In O. Pietquin, S. Muresan, V. Chen, C. Kennington, D. Vandyke, N. Dethlefs, K. Inoue, E. Ekstedt & S. Ultes (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21th Annual Meeting of the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue (pp. 215–224). Association for Computational Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2020.sigdial-1.27
Gordon-Salant, S., & Friedman, S. A. (2011). Recognition of Rapid Speech by Blind and Sighted Older Adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 54(2), 622–631. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2010/10-0052)
Hogstrom, A., Theodore, R., Canfield, A., Castelluccio, B., Green, J., Irvine, C., & Eigsti, I.-M. (2018). Reduced Phonetic Convergence in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 1797–1802. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7gj1d252
Inclusion Europe. (2009). Information for all: European standards for making information easy to read and understand. European Commission. https://inclusion-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/2113-Information-for-all-16.pdf
Institut d’Estudis Catalans. (2023). Informe sobre la qualitat lingüística en els butlletins meteorològics televisius. Institut d’Estudis Catalans. https://oql.iec.cat/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/InformeOQLMeteorologiaTV.pdf
ISO. (2023). ISO/IEC 23859:2023. Information technology – User interfaces – Requirements and recommendations on making written text easy to read and understand. International Organization for Standardization. https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:23859:-1:dis:ed-1:v1:en
Jacewicz, E., Fox, R. A., & Wei, L. (2010). Between-speaker and within-speaker variation in speech tempo of American English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 128(2), 839–850. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.3459842
Jaekel, B. N., Newman, R. S., & Goupell, M. J. (2017). Speech Rate Normalization and Phonemic Boundary Perception in Cochlear-Implant Users. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research: JSLHR, 60(5), 1398–1416. https://doi.org/10.1044/2016_JSLHR-H-15-0427
Jeong, M., Oh, H., Park, J., & Song, J. (2024). Listening effort under different rates of speech. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 155(3), A80–A80. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0026879
Khan, A., Abdal-hay, A., Qazi, T., Calle, C. L., & Castillo, R. C. (2014). Time Estimation in Developmental Dyslexia: An Experimental Investigation. Open Journal of Medical Psychology, 3(5), 373–381. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojmp.2014.35039
Kim, J. (2014). The effect of context speech rate in the recognition of English auxiliary verbs. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology, 20(1), 83–97. https://doi.org/10.17959/sppm.2014.20.1.83
Kim, J.-S. (2010). Within-Subjects Design. In N. J. Salkind (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Research Design (pp. 1639–1644). SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412961288.n503
King, C. J., Sharpe, C. M., Shorey, A. E., & Stilp, C. E. (2024). The effects of variability on context effects and psychometric function slopes in speaking rate normalization. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 155(3), 2099–2113. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0025292
Krokar, L., Atkinson, A. G., Nguyen, D. T., & Willis, R. E. (2023). The effect of listening speed on comprehension: are you sacrificing comprehension by speeding up? Global Surgical Education - Journal of the Association for Surgical Education, 3(1), 13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44186-023-00213-6
Kruyt, J., & Beňuš, Š. (2021). Prosodic entrainment in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Topics in Linguistics, 22(2), 47–61. https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2021-0010
Lamotte, M., & Droit-Volet, S. (2017). Aging and Time Perception for Short and Long Durations: A Question of Attention? Timing & Time Perception, 5(2), 149–167. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134468-00002086
Lehnert-LeHouillier, H., Terrazas, S., & Sandoval, S. (2020). Prosodic Entrainment in Conversations of Verbal Children and Teens on the Autism Spectrum. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.582221
Liu, P. (2022). The Real Role of Listening and Speaking in Foreign Language Acquisition – A Theoretical Analysis Based on Comprehensible Input Hypothesis and Affective Filter Hypothesis. Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 4(5), 72–75. https://doi.org/10.53469/jssh.2022.4(05).14
Lustig, C. (2003). Grandfather’s clock: Attention and interval timing in older adults. In W. Meck (Ed.), Functional and neural mechanisms of interval timing (pp. 261–293). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780203009574.ch10
Machuca, M. J., Matamala, A., & Ríos Mestre, A. (2020). Prosodic features in Spanish audio descriptions of the VIW corpus. MonTI. Monografías de Traducción e Interpretación, 12, 53–77. https://doi.org/10.6035/MonTI.2020.12.02
Maslowski, M., Meyer, A. S., & Bosker, H. R. (2019a). How the tracking of habitual rate influences speech perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 45(1), 128–138. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000579
Maslowski, M., Meyer, A. S., & Bosker, H. R. (2019b). Listeners normalize speech for contextual speech rate even without an explicit recognition task. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 146(1), 179–188. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5116004
McCarthy, T., Pal, J., & Cutrell, E. (2013). The “Voice” Has It: Screen Reader Adoption and Switching Behavior Among Vision Impaired Persons in India. Assistive Technology, 25(4), 222–229. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400435.2013.768719
Miller, J. L., Grosjean, F., & Lomanto, C. (1984). Articulation Rate and Its Variability in Spontaneous Speech: A Reanalysis and Some Implications. Phonetica, 41(4), 215–225. https://doi.org/10.1159/000261728
Miyazaki, Y. (2007). Yasashii Nihongo (Easy Japanese) on Community Media: Focusing on Radio Broadcasting. KGPS Review: Kwansei Gakuin Policy Studies Review, 8, 1–14. http://hdl.handle.net/10236/1840
Morrill, T. H., Dilley, L. C., McAuley, J. D., & Pitt, M. A. (2014). Distal rhythm influences whether or not listeners hear a word in continuous speech: Support for a perceptual grouping hypothesis. Cognition, 131(1), 69–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.12.006
Nakajima, S., Okochi, N., & Mitobe, K. (2024). Enhancing movie experience by speech rate design of audio description. Universal Access in the Information Society. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-024-01178-z
Newman, R. S., & Sawusch, J. R. (2009). Perceptual normalization for speaking rate III: Effects of the rate of one voice on perception of another. Journal of Phonetics, 37(1), 46–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2008.09.001
Nicolson, R. I., Fawcett, A. J., & Dean, P. (1995). Time estimation deficits in developmental dyslexia: evidence of cerebellar involvement. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 43–47. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1995.0007
North Yorkshire County Council. (2014). A guide to producing written information in easy read. North Yorkshire County Council.
Ochi, K., Ono, N., Owada, K., Kojima, M., Kuroda, M., Sagayama, S., & Yamasue, H. (2019). Quantification of speech and synchrony in the conversation of adults with autism spectrum disorder. PLOS ONE, 14(12), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225377
Perego, E. (2024). Translation Into Easy Language. The unexplored case of podcasts. In L. Pillière & Ö. B. Albachten (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Intralingual Translation (pp. 453–471). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003188872-33
Pérez Colomé, J. (2011). Com escriure clar. Editorial UOC.
Pichora-Fuller, M. K. (2003). Processing speed and timing in aging adults: psychoacoustics, speech perception, and comprehension. International Journal of Audiology, 42(1), 59–67. https://doi.org/10.3109/14992020309074625
Powell, C. (2003). The Delphi technique: myths and realities. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 41(4), 376–382. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.2003.02537.x
Pujadas-Farreras, M., & Matamala, A. (forthcoming). Creation and Translation of Audiovisual Content in Oral Easy-to-Understand Language: Insights from Interviews with Professionals. Hermēneus – Revista de Investigación en Traducción e Interpretación, 27.
Quené, H. (2008). Multilevel modeling of between-speaker and within-speaker variation in spontaneous speech tempo. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 123(2), 1104–1113. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2821762
Rattat, A.-C., & Collié, I. (2020). Duration judgments in children and adolescents with and without mild intellectual disability. Heliyon, 6(11), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05514
Raven, J. C. (1998). Raven’s Progressive Matrices. Pearson Clinical.
Reinisch, E. (2016). Natural fast speech is perceived as faster than linearly time-compressed speech. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 78(4), 1203–1217. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-016-1067-x
Robles Garrote, P., & Rojas, M. del C. (2015). La validación por juicio de expertos: dos investigaciones cualitativas en Lingüística aplicada. Revista Nebrija de Lingüística Aplicada, 18, 124–139. https://doi.org/10.26378/rnlael918259
Rubanovsky-Paz, J., Karas, H., & Yalon-Chamovitz, S. (2024). Intralingual Interpretation. Simultaneous Easy Language interpreting as a new form of simultaneous interpreting. In L. Pillière & Ö. B. Albachten (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Intralingual Translation (pp. 395–410). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003188872-30
Seibel, C., & Carlucci, L. (2021). El lenguaje controlado: punto de partida hacia la Lectura fácil. Hikma, 20(2), 331–357. https://doi.org/10.21071/hikma.v20i2.13394
Summerfield, Q. (1981). Articulatory rate and perceptual constancy in phonetic perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 7(5), 1074–1095. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.7.5.1074
Vaane, E. (1982). Subjective Estimation of Speech Rate. Phonetica, 39(2–3), 136–149. https://doi.org/10.1159/000261656
Vanneste, S., & Pouthas, V. (1999). Timing in Aging: The Role of Attention. Experimental Aging Research, 25(1), 49–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/036107399244138
Wasowicz, J., Smith, B. L., & Preston, J. (1986). Durational characteristics of the speech of normal elderly adults. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 80(S1), S80–S80. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2023987
Wei, L., & Dilley, L. (2016). Cross-linguistic generalization of the distal rate effect: Speech rate in context affects whether listeners hear a function word in Chinese Mandarin. Speech Prosody 2016, 1124–1128. https://doi.org/10.21437/SpeechProsody.2016-231
Williams, P. L., & Webb, C. (1994). The Delphi technique: a methodological discussion. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 19(1), 180–186. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.1994.tb01066.x
Wynn, C. J., Borrie, S. A., & Sellers, T. P. (2018). Speech Rate Entrainment in Children and Adults With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(3), 965–974. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0134
Yang, S. (2019). Investigating the Effect of Speech Rate on the Cognitive Load in Simultaneous Interpreting with Text. [Doctoral Thesis]. University of Macau.
Downloads
Publicado
Como Citar
Edição
Seção
Licença
Copyright (c) 2025 Cadernos de Tradução
Este trabalho está licenciado sob uma licença Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Autores têm autorização para assumir contratos adicionais separadamente, para distribuição não exclusiva da versão do trabalho publicada nesta revista (ex.: publicar em repositório institucional ou como capítulo de livro, com reconhecimento de autoria e publicação inicial nesta revista).
