# An analysis of degenerating speech due to progressive dysarthria on ASR performance

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.00089 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.00089/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 21 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 31 Oct 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Speech Recognition with Deep Recurrent Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1303.5778/) (2013)
- [Personalizing ASR for Dysarthric and Accented Speech with Limited Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.13511/) (2019)
- [Toward domain-invariant speech recognition via large scale training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.05312/) (2018)
- [Personalized Automatic Speech Recognition Trained on Small Disordered Speech Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.04612/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Self-supervised ASR Models and Features For Dysarthric and Elderly Speech Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.13782/) (2024)
- [Enhancing Dysarthric Speech Recognition for Unseen Speakers via Prototype-Based Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.18461/) (2024)
- [Hypernetworks for Personalizing ASR to Atypical Speech](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04240/) (2024)
- [A Cookbook for Community-driven Data Collection of Impaired Speech in LowResource Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02428/) (2025)
- [Idiosyncratic Versus Normative Modeling of Atypical Speech Recognition: Dysarthric Case Studies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.16718/) (2025)
- [A Cross Community Agenda for Speech AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.13168/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Although personalized automatic speech recognition (ASR) models have recently been designed to recognize even severely impaired speech, model performance may degrade over time for persons with degenerating speech. The aims of this study were to (1) analyze the change of performance of ASR over time in individuals with degrading speech, and (2) explore mitigation strategies to optimize recognition throughout disease progression. Speech was recorded by four individuals with degrading speech due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Word error rates (WER) across recording sessions were computed for three ASR models: Unadapted Speaker Independent (U-SI), Adapted Speaker Independent (A-SI), and Adapted Speaker Dependent (A-SD or personalized). The performance of all three models degraded significantly over time as speech became more impaired, but the performance of the A-SD model improved markedly when it was updated with recordings from the severe stages of speech progression. Recording additional utterances early in the disease before speech degraded significantly did not improve the performance of A-SD models. Overall, our findings emphasize the importance of continuous recording (and model retraining) when providing personalized models for individuals with progressive speech impairments.