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Diagnostics
Special Issues
Evaluation and Management of Developmental Disabilities
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Evaluation and Management of Developmental Disabilities

A special issue of Diagnostics (ISSN 2075-4418). This special issue belongs to the section "Clinical Diagnosis and Prognosis".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2025 | Viewed by 402

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Meir Lotan

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Israeli Rett Syndrome National Evaluation Team, Sheba Hospital, Ramat-Gan, Israel
2. Department of Physiotherapy, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel
Interests: developmental disabilities; autism; intellectual and developmental disabilities; Rett syndrome
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to our Special Issue, entitled “Evaluation and Management of Developmental Disabilities”.

People with developmental disabilities (DDs) have been a marginalized population for years. This Special Issue will spotlight different projects currently underway, presenting new research findings and updates in management areas for specific populations that usually receive less attention.

In this Special Issue, we will present articles outlining innovations covering a wide scope of topics related to people with DDs in general. In addition, we hope that this Special Issue will contribute to the literature on this topic and shed light on individuals with DDs.

We hope that our efforts will (1) facilitate awareness of rare developmental disabilities; (2) enhance the knowledge of assessments in individuals with DDs; (3) evoke discussions on how to improve diagnosis in an array of topics related to those with IDDs; (4) suggest new ideas that will assist those with DDs and their families in daily situations.

To initiate the process of being published in this Special Issue, please submit a one-page abstract to the address mentioned above, written in the following manner: introduction (including the scientific background and highlighting the importance of this research area), the aims of the research, results, and conclusions.

Prof. Dr. Meir Lotan
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diagnostics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • developmental disabilities
  • early intervention
  • diagnostic assessment
  • therapeutic strategies
  • neurodevelopmental disorders
  • personalized care
  • multidisciplinary approach
  • family-centered support

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 856 KiB  
Article
Automated Assessment of Word- and Sentence-Level Speech Intelligibility in Developmental Motor Speech Disorders: A Cross-Linguistic Investigation
by Micalle Carl and Michal Icht
Diagnostics 2025, 15(15), 1892; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics15151892 - 28 Jul 2025
Viewed by 278
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Accurate assessment of speech intelligibility is necessary for individuals with motor speech disorders. Transcription or scaled rating methods by naïve listeners are the most reliable tasks for these purposes; however, they are often resource-intensive and time-consuming within clinical contexts. Automatic speech [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Accurate assessment of speech intelligibility is necessary for individuals with motor speech disorders. Transcription or scaled rating methods by naïve listeners are the most reliable tasks for these purposes; however, they are often resource-intensive and time-consuming within clinical contexts. Automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems, which transcribe speech into text, have been increasingly utilized for assessing speech intelligibility. This study investigates the feasibility of using an open-source ASR system to assess speech intelligibility in Hebrew and English speakers with Down syndrome (DS). Methods: Recordings from 65 Hebrew- and English-speaking participants were included: 33 speakers with DS and 32 typically developing (TD) peers. Speech samples (words, sentences) were transcribed using Whisper (OpenAI) and by naïve listeners. The proportion of agreement between ASR transcriptions and those of naïve listeners was compared across speaker groups (TD, DS) and languages (Hebrew, English) for word-level data. Further comparisons for Hebrew speakers were conducted across speaker groups and stimuli (words, sentences). Results: The strength of the correlation between listener and ASR transcription scores varied across languages, and was higher for English (r = 0.98) than for Hebrew (r = 0.81) for speakers with DS. A higher proportion of listener–ASR agreement was demonstrated for TD speakers, as compared to those with DS (0.94 vs. 0.74, respectively), and for English, in comparison to Hebrew speakers (0.91 for English DS speakers vs. 0.74 for Hebrew DS speakers). Listener–ASR agreement for single words was consistently higher than for sentences among Hebrew speakers. Speakers’ intelligibility influenced word-level agreement among Hebrew- but not English-speaking participants with DS. Conclusions: ASR performance for English closely approximated that of naïve listeners, suggesting potential near-future clinical applicability within single-word intelligibility assessment. In contrast, a lower proportion of agreement between human listeners and ASR for Hebrew speech indicates that broader clinical implementation may require further training of ASR models in this language. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Evaluation and Management of Developmental Disabilities)
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