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PRAUTOCAL corpus: a corpus for the study of Down syndrome prosodic aspects

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Abstract

Oral productions of speakers with Down syndrome exhibit special characteristics that have been the target of study for decades. In spite of this attention, the availability of rich resources for its analysis is still scarce. In this paper, we present the definition and compiling procedure of a corpus of semi-controlled oral productions of speakers with Down syndrome that aims to allow the analysis of how these speakers with these speakers produce functional and linguistic aspects of speech. The PRAUTOCAL corpus has been recorded while using a video game for training oral competences. Utterances are related to well defined communicative tasks recorded by both speakers with Down syndrome and typically developing speakers. We present the procedure for human experts to evaluate the recordings and the transcription criteria followed for enriching the utterances of the corpus. PRAUTOCAL permits the analysis of the clear contrast in voice and speech between individuals with Down syndrome and typically developing speakers, taking into account the high heterogeneity of the speech problems characteristic of the syndrome. This material allows the analysis of the speech problems in Down syndrome, with applications to the generation of knowledge that could be used in future works for therapists to prepare specific training or enriching diagnosis regarding possible speech and language disorders.

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Notes

  1. Resolution PI 20-1639 of the Ethics Committee

  2. https://eca-simm.uva.es/en/prautocal-corpus/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Informática, Grupo ECA-SIMM, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain

    David Escudero-Mancebo, Mario Corrales-Astorgano, Valentín Cardeñoso-Payo & César González-Ferreras

  2. Departament de Filologia Espanyola, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain

    Lourdes Aguilar

  3. Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain

    Pastora Martínez-Castilla

  4. Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain

    Valle Flores-Lucas

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  1. David Escudero-Mancebo
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Correspondence to David Escudero-Mancebo.

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The activities of Down syndrome speech analysis continue (1/2018-12/2020) in the project funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and the European Regional Development Fund FEDER (TIN2017-88858-C2-1-R) and in the project funded by the Junta de Castilla y León (VA050G18). Part of this work was funded by the BBVA Foundation (2015-2017) in the framework of the project PRADIA: Pragmatics and prosody: the graphic adventure game.

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Escudero-Mancebo, D., Corrales-Astorgano, M., Cardeñoso-Payo, V. et al. PRAUTOCAL corpus: a corpus for the study of Down syndrome prosodic aspects. Lang Resources & Evaluation 56, 191–224 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10579-021-09542-8

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