title: Task-related factors in oral motor control: speech and oral diadochokinesis in dysarthria and apraxia of speech.
abstract: This study was focused on the potential influence of task-related factors on oral motor performance in patients with speech disorders. Sentence production was compared with a nonspeech oral motor task, i.e., oral diadochokinesis. Perceptual and acoustic measures of speech impairment were used as dependent variables. Between-task comparisons were made for subsamples of a population of 140 patients with different motor speech syndromes, including apraxia of speech and cerebellar dysarthria. In a further analysis subgroups were matched for speaking rate. Overall, dysdiadochokinesis was correlated with the degree of speech impairment, but there was a strong interaction between task type and motor speech syndrome. In particular, cerebellar pathology affected DDK to a relatively greater extent than sentence production, while apraxic pathology spared the ability of repeating syllables at maximum speed.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neuropsychology Research Group, Neuropsychological Department, City Hospital Bogenhausen, München, Germany. wolfram.ziegler@extern.lrz-muenchen.de
authors.forename: Wolfram
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ziegler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001072:Apraxias / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004401:Dysarthria / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D014059:Tongue / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*