title: Oral diadochokinesis in neurological dysarthrias.
abstract: Rapid syllable repetitions require alternating articulatory movements and, thus, provide a test for oral diadochokinesis. The present study performed an acoustic analysis of rapid syllable repetitions in patients suffering from idiopathic Parkinson's disease (n = 17), Huntington's chorea (n = 14), Friedreich's ataxia (n = 9), or from a purely cerebellar syndrome (n = 13). Four parameters were considered: the mean number of syllables per train, the median syllable duration with its variation coefficient, and articulatory imprecision in terms of the percentage of incomplete closures. Apart from a few subjects with minor motor deficits only, in all patients at least one of the four measures of diadochokinesis exceeded the normal range. Accordingly, discriminant analysis revealed a highly significant difference between controls and patients with respect to the considered parameters. Thus, oral diadochokinesis tasks represent a sensitive measure of orofacial motor impairment. Moreover, multivariate analysis showed that Parkinson's disease and Friedreich's ataxia are characterized by a highly specific profile of diadochokinesis performance.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ackermann
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hertrich
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hehr
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001184:Articulation Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D002526:Cerebellar Diseases / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D004401:Dysarthria / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D005621:Friedreich Ataxia / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D010700:Phonetics; D012660:Semantics; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013577:Syndrome