Dysarthria

About: Dysarthria is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2402 publications have been published within this topic receiving 56554 citations.

Automatic Evaluation of Speech Rhythm Instability and Acceleration in Dysarthrias Associated with Basal Ganglia Dysfunction

Abstract: Speech rhythm abnormalities are commonly present in patients with different neurodegenerative disorders These alterations are hypothesized to be a consequence of disruption to the basal ganglia circuitry involving dysfunction of motor planning, programing, and execution, which can be detected by a syllable repetition paradigm Therefore, the aim of the present study was to design a robust signal processing technique that allows the automatic detection of spectrally distinctive nuclei of syllable vocalizations and to determine speech features that represent rhythm instability (RI) and rhythm acceleration (RA) A further aim was to elucidate specific patterns of dysrhythmia across various neurodegenerative disorders that share disruption of basal ganglia function Speech samples based on repetition of the syllable /pa/ at a self-determined steady pace were acquired from 109 subjects, including 22 with Parkinson's disease (PD), 11 progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), 9 multiple system atrophy (MSA), 24 ephedrone-induced parkinsonism (EP), 20 Huntington's disease (HD), and 23 healthy controls Subsequently, an algorithm for the automatic detection of syllables as well as features representing RI and RA were designed The proposed detection algorithm was able to correctly identify syllables and remove erroneous detections due to excessive inspiration and non-speech sounds with a very high accuracy of 996% Instability of vocal pace performance was observed in PSP, MSA, EP, and HD groups Significantly increased pace acceleration was observed only in the PD group Although not significant, a tendency for pace acceleration was observed also in the PSP and MSA groups Our findings underline the crucial role of the basal ganglia in the execution and maintenance of automatic speech motor sequences We envisage the current approach to become the first step toward the development of acoustic technologies allowing automated assessment of rhythm in dysarthrias

Treatment of articulatory dysfunction in Parkinson's disease using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Abstract: Background and purpose: Neuroimaging has demonstrated that improved speech outcomes in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) subsequent to behavioural treatment approaches are associated with increased activity in the motor and pre-motor cortex. High-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is capable of modulating cortical activity and has been reported to have significant benefit to general motor function in PD. It is possible that high-frequency rTMS may also have beneficial outcomes on speech production in PD. Methods: High-frequency (5 Hz) rTMS was applied to 10 active stimulation and 10 sham placebo patients for 10 min/day (3000 pulses), for 10 days and speech outcome measures and lingual kinematic parameters recorded at baseline and 1 week, 2 and 12 months post-stimulation. Results: The findings demonstrated positive treatment-related changes observed in the active rTMS group when compared to the sham placebo control group at 2 and 12 months post-stimulation in speech intelligibility, communication efficiency ratio, maximum velocity of tongue movements and distance of tongue movements. Conclusion: The results support the use of high-frequency rTMS as a therapeutic tool for the treatment of articulatory dysfunction in PD.

Estimates of the prevalence of speech and motor speech disorders in adolescents with Down syndrome

Abstract: Although there is substantial rationale for a motor component in the speech of persons with Down syndrome (DS), there presently are no published estimates of the prevalence of subtypes of motor spe...

Long-Term Average Spectral (LTAS) Measures of Dysarthria and Their Relationship to Perceived Severity

Abstract: This study investigated the relationship between measures of Long-Term Average Spectrum (LTAS) for speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and scaled estimates of perceived speech severity. Perceived severity was operationally defined as listeners' overall impression of voice, resonance, articulatory precision, and prosody without regard to intelligibility. Healthy control talkers were also studied. Speakers were audio recorded while reading Harvard Sentences and the Grandfather Passage. Using TF32 (Milenkovic, 2005), the LTAS was computed for sentences. Coefficients of the first four moments were used to characterize energy across the speech spectrum. Supplemental acoustic measures of articulatory rate, vocal intensity, and fundamental frequency also were obtained. Three speech-language pathologists scaled speech severity for the reading passages. Results indicated no group differences in acoustic measures. The absolute magnitude of correlations between LTAS moment coefficients and perceptual estimates of scaled severity within and across speaker groups ranged from .16 to .53, with the strongest correlations for the PD group. These results suggest that the LTAS may prove useful in conjunction with perceptual judgments to document speech spectral changes related to treatment or disease progression. Findings further suggest that different acoustic models of severity are likely needed for dysarthria secondary to PD and dysarthria secondary to MS.

Perceptual characteristics of Cantonese hypokinetic dysarthria

Abstract: The aims of this study were to provide a perceptual speech 'profile' for Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria, to examine the reliability of non-expert listeners in perceptual judgements of dysarthric speech, and to investigate cross-language differences in profiles of hypokinetic dysarthria. Participants included 19 speakers with Parkinson's disease and 10 speech-language pathologists who served as listeners. Listeners rated 21 speech dimensions, using seven-point interval scales. Mean intralistener agreement was 94.52% and mean interlistener reliability was 0.88 (Cronbach's alpha). Mean scale values (MSV) for each dimension ranged from 3.37 to 1.36. The perceptual profile of Cantonese hypokinetic dysarthria was largely similar to profiles for English and Japanese speakers; notable differences are discussed. Possible reasons for the relatively high reliability obtained are presented.