Acoustic analysis of speech timing in Huntington's disease.
Duration measurements at the acoustic speech signal of sentence utterances including syllable lengths, vowel durations, and voice-onset-time (VOT) were performed in 13 subjects with Huntington's disease (HD) and in 12 control speakers. First, all 13 HD subjects presented with increased variability of utterance duration and/or VOT. Second, a subgroup had reduced speech tempo concomitant with overproportional lengthening of short vowels. Presumably, these deviations result from slowed movement execution (bradykinesia) and delayed between-movement transitions. Third, durational parameters of phonetic timing, e.g. stress contrast, were largely unimpaired. In a further patient (HD14) severely reduced articulatory accuracy did not allow acoustic measurements. He presented with truncated, barely intelligible, diphthongized sentence utterances. A slight tendency for these deviations could be noted in two of the HD subjects who underwent acoustic analysis. Since all three subjects had a rather long disease duration, this constellation might represent an advanced stage of HD dysarthria into which the other syndromes ultimately will develop.
Department of Neurology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
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Hertrich
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Ackermann
D000328:Adult; D004401:Dysarthria / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013997:Time Factors