Dysarthria

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

Automatic and perceptual discrimination between dysarthria, apraxia of speech, and neurotypical speech

Abstract: Automatic techniques in the context of motor speech disorders (MSDs) are typically two-class techniques aiming to discriminate between dysarthria and neurotypical speech or between dysarthria and apraxia of speech (AoS). Further, although such techniques are proposed to support the perceptual assessment of clinicians, the automatic and perceptual classification accuracy has never been compared. In this paper, we investigate a three-class automatic technique and a set of handcrafted features for the discrimination of dysarthria, AoS and neurotypical speech. Instead of following the commonly used One-versus-One or One-versus-Rest approaches for multi-class classification, a hierarchical approach is proposed. Further, a perceptual study is conducted where speech and language pathologists are asked to listen to recordings of dysarthria, AoS, and neurotypical speech and decide which class the recordings belong to. The proposed automatic technique is evaluated on the same recordings and the automatic and perceptual classification performance are compared. The presented results show that the hierarchical classification approach yields a higher classification accuracy than baseline One-versus-One and One-versus-Rest approaches. Further, the presented results show that the automatic approach yields a higher classification accuracy than the perceptual assessment of speech and language pathologists, demonstrating the potential advantages of integrating automatic tools in clinical practice.

[Dysarthria due to small cerebral infarction--the localization of lesion and clinical characteristics]

Abstract: We compared locations of infarctions and clinical characteristics for patients with dysarthria and those without dysarthria Subjects were 40 patients with a small infarction in the corona radiata or junctional zone to the capsule and 13 patients with infarctions in the internal capsule Left corona radiata/junctional zone infarctions were significantly smaller than right sided lesions Dysarthria was associated more frequently with the corona/junctional lesions on the left side than the right sided lesions Asymptomatic infarctions on the contralateral side were seen in 41% of the patients with dysarthria In these cases, dysarthria continued longer and dysphagia occurred more frequently than the cases without right sided lesions Corona radiata/junctional zone infarctions with dysarthria were located significantly more anteriorly than those without dysarthria The corona radiata/junctional zone infarctions presenting with dysarthria alone, upper limb dominant hemiparesis, and lower dominant hemiparesis were located in the anterior, middle, and posterior areas, respectively In conclusion, dysarthria may occur with unilateral small cerebral infarctions, more frequently with left sided lesions than with right sided lesions It is assumed that the left corona radiata/junctional zone infarction may interrupt simultaneously the corticobulbar pathway and callosal fibers to the right hemisphere which transmit motor information for speech to the right hemisphere It is also possible that there are individual variations in the proportion of crossed and uncrossed corticobulbar innervation, which may explain dysarthria with unilateral cerebral lesions in some patients It was suggested that there is an anterior-posterior somatotopy in the corona radiata/junctional zone as well as in the internal capsule

Short-term effect of dopaminergic medication on speech in early-stage Parkinson’s disease

Abstract: The effect of dopaminergic medication on speech has rarely been examined in early-stage Parkinson's disease (PD) and the respective literature is inconclusive and limited by inappropriate design with lack of PD control group. The study aims to examine the short-term effect of dopaminergic medication on speech in PD using patients with good motor responsiveness to levodopa challenge compared to a control group of PD patients with poor motor responsiveness. A total of 60 early-stage PD patients were investigated before (OFF) and after (ON) acute levodopa challenge and compared to 30 age-matched healthy controls. PD patients were categorised into two clinical subgroups (PD responders vs. PD nonresponders) according to the comparison of their motor performance based on movement disorder society-unified Parkinson's disease rating scale, part III. Seven distinctive parameters of hypokinetic dysarthria were examined using quantitative acoustic analysis. We observed increased monopitch (p > 0.01), aggravated monoloudness (p > 0.05) and longer duration of stop consonants (p > 0.05) in PD compared to healthy controls, confirming the presence of hypokinetic dysarthria in early PD. No speech alterations from OFF to ON state were revealed in any of the two PD groups and speech dimensions investigated including monopitch, monoloudness, imprecise consonants, harsh voice, slow sequential motion rates, articulation rate, or inappropriate silences, although a subgroup of PD responders manifested obvious improvement in motor function after levodopa intake (p > 0.001). Since the short-term usage of levodopa does not easily affect voice and speech performance in PD, speech assessment may provide a medication state-independent motor biomarker of PD.

Comparing Lexical Cues in Listener Processing of Dysarthria and Speech in Noise.

Abstract: Purpose The frequency of a word and its number of phonologically similar neighbors can dramatically affect how likely it is to be accurately identified in adverse listening conditions. This study compares how these two cues affect listeners' processing of speech in noise and dysarthric speech. Method Seven speakers with moderate hypokinetic dysarthria and eight healthy control speakers were recorded producing the same set of phrases. Statements from control speakers were mixed with noise at a level selected to match the intelligibility range of the speakers with dysarthria. A binomial mixed-effects model quantified the effects of word frequency and phonological density on word identification. Results The model revealed significant effects of word frequency (b = 0.37, SE = 0.12, p = .002) and phonological neighborhood density (b = 0.40, SE = 0.12, p = .001). There was no effect of speaking condition (i.e., dysarthric speech vs. speech in noise). However, a significant interaction was observed between speaking condition and word frequency (b = 0.26, SE = 0.04, p < .001). Conclusions The model's interactions indicated that listeners were more strongly influenced by the effects of word frequency when decoding moderate hypokinetic dysarthria as compared to speech in noise. Differences in listener reliance on lexical cues may have important implications for the selection of communication-based treatment strategies for speakers with dysarthria.