Monday, June 30, 2025 6/30/2025

Automated objective outcome measures for clinical use in dysarthria

Award Number: R44DC017625
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 01/07/2019
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 03/06/2024

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Automated objective outcome measures for clinical use in dysarthria - Abstract / Summary The inability to engage in spoken communication is among the most debilitating of all human conditions. In the field of communication disorders, a speech-language pathologist’s (SLP’s) perceptual evaluation of the quality of speech production is the gold standard for assessment and for documenting treatment progress. However, decades of research have confirmed that auditory-perceptual judgments of speech are inherently biased, which compromises reliability. The reason is that the human perceptual system is adaptive, with perceptual bias accrued by working with an individual across multiple treatment sessions, or by working with patient populations across a career. Thus, to reliably document treatment outcomes subjectively, it is necessary to involve multiple, unfamiliar listeners. This is untenable in most clinical settings, which means that subjective impressions are made by the treating clinicians. The reliance on subjective evaluation directly undermines the quality of clinical practice and a clinician’s ability to demonstrate the efficacy of an intervention. Aural Analytics has developed new objective acoustic speech metrics that reliably measure speech in populations with neurological disorders. Its technology is based on a strong scientific premise and has been adopted early by pharmaceutical companies and neurologists in clinical research. Aural Analytics has collected and analyzed tens of thousands of speech samples using its technology, and the results are demonstrating that its measures are robust, reliable, and more sensitive to longitudinal changes in speech than are other existing outcome measures. We successfully completed a Phase I SBIR project with the aim of translating our technology to SLP clinical practice. This Phase II proposal naturally builds on our previous work by connecting the automated app-based outcome measures completed in Phase I to three complementary clinical benchmarks. Specifically, SA1 will validate the Aural Analytics speech measures against the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA) Functional Communication Measures (FCM) for motor speech; the Sentence Intelligibility Test; and expert ratings of speech characteristics. In addition, age and gender-based norms for all objective measures will be obtained from collection of data from 600 new healthy participants. In SA2, Aural Analytics will conduct a usability study with practicing speech-language pathologists to assess real world utility and refine the user experience. The deliverable of this proposal will be a fully-functional mobile application, validated by practicing SLPs in a clinical setting, with real time speech outcome metrics validated with respect to existing community-accepted measures. This will result in objective outcomes that fit into the workflow of the professional standard, thereby expediting our path to commercialization.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = -$178,119 )
2025	2023	AURAL ANALYTICS, INC.	1355 N SCOTTSDALE RD STE 110	SCOTTSDALE	AZ	85257	MARICOPA	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	3	11/14/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$178,119
														Subtotal = -$178,119

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2024	2023	AURAL ANALYTICS, INC.	1355 N SCOTTSDALE RD STE 110	SCOTTSDALE	AZ	85257	MARICOPA	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	001	3	3/21/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
2024	2023	AURAL ANALYTICS, INC.	1355 N SCOTTSDALE RD STE 110	SCOTTSDALE	AZ	85257	MARICOPA	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	3	12/14/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
2024	2023	AURAL ANALYTICS, INC.	1355 N SCOTTSDALE RD STE 110	SCOTTSDALE	AZ	85257	MARICOPA	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	002	3	3/29/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $712,471 )
2023	2023	AURAL ANALYTICS, INC.	1355 N SCOTTSDALE RD STE 110	SCOTTSDALE	AZ	85257	MARICOPA	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	001	3	6/29/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$712,471
2023	2022	AURAL ANALYTICS, INC.	1355 N SCOTTSDALE RD STE 110	SCOTTSDALE	AZ	85257	MARICOPA	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	2	3/22/2023	COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $712,471

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $734,433 )
2022	2022	AURAL ANALYTICS, INC.	1355 N SCOTTSDALE RD STE 110	SCOTTSDALE	AZ	85257	MARICOPA	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	2	6/8/2022	COMPETING CONTINUATION	$734,433
														Subtotal = $734,433

Grand Total All Awards = $1,268,786

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Automated objective outcome measures for clinical use in dysarthria

Award Number: R44DC017625

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 01/07/2019

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 03/06/2024

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