Klaske van Sluis

Long-term stability of tracheoesophageal voices 89 quality scores, and therefore also with intelligibility. Since perceptual voice qual- ity and intelligibility are strongly correlated it is shown that for these speakers, AVQI provides consistent information on both perceived voice quality and in- telligibility. The AVQI was an even better predictor of perceived intelligibility than the automatic ELIS scores. Ideally an automatic speech analysis program, which detects differences over time, is needed. The ELIS evaluation tool is used to evaluate individual speech samples. Comparisons between (T2 – T1) sam- ples are made afterwards. For the future it would be recommended to develop an automatic assessment tool that can directly evaluate differences between speech samples. 5.5 Conclusions Voice quality and intelligibility of tracheoesophageal speakers is more or less stable over a period of 7 to 18 years. There might be a slight decrease in the quality of the tracheoesophageal speech in some speakers, but, if at all present, this could not be consistently ascertained. Voice quality and intelligibility are correlated when rated perceptually by experts as well as when evaluated au- tomatically. To get more insight in the long-term changes of speech quality it is recommended to systematically collect data of a large group of tracheoe- sophageal speakers over a longer period of time. Tools for automatic evaluation of speech quality are very promising for analyzing trends within individual speakers. 5.6 Acknowledgements The Department of Head and Neck Oncology and Surgery of the Netherlands Cancer Institute received an unrestricted research grant from Atos Medical (Hörby, Sweden). The authors have no other funding, financial relationships, or conflicts of interest to disclose. References [1] E. C. Ward and C. J. van As-Brooks, Head and neck cancer: treatment, rehabilitation, and outcomes . Plural Publishing, 2014. [2] P. Farrand and R. Endacott, “Speech determines quality of life following total laryngectomy: The emperors new voice?,” in Handbook of Disease Burdens and Quality of Life Measures , pp. 1989–2001, Springer, 2010. [3] E. D. Blom, M. I. Singer, and R. C. Hamaker, “Tracheostoma valve for postlaryngectomy voice rehabilitation,” Annals of Otology, Rhinology & Laryngology , vol. 91, no. 6, pp. 576–578, 1982.