title: Impact of typical aging and Parkinson's disease on the relationship among breath pausing, syntax, and punctuation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The present study examines the impact of typical aging and Parkinson's disease (PD) on the relationship among breath pausing, syntax, and punctuation.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty young adults, 25 typically aging older adults, and 15 individuals with PD participated. Fifteen participants were age- and sex-matched to the individuals with PD. Participants read a passage aloud 2 times. Utterance length, location of breath pauses relative to punctuation and syntax, and number of disfluencies and mazes were measured.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Older adults produced shorter utterances, a smaller percentage of breaths at major boundaries, and a greater percentage of breaths at minor boundaries than did young adults, but there was no significant difference between older adults and individuals with PD on these measures. Individuals with PD took a greater percentage of breaths at locations unrelated to a syntactic boundary than did control participants. Individuals with PD produced more mazes than did control participants. Breaths were significantly correlated with punctuation for all groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Changes in breath-pausing patterns in older adults are likely due to changes in respiratory physiology. However, in individuals with PD, such changes appear to result from a combination of changes to respiratory physiology and cognition.
authors: Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. jhuber@purdue.edu
authors: Jessica E
authors: JE
authors: Huber
authors: Meghan
authors: M
authors: Darling
authors: Elaine J
authors: EJ
authors: Francis
authors: Dabao
authors: D
authors: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010699:Phonation / Q000502:physiology*; D011932:Reading; D015656:Respiratory Mechanics / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D055815:Young Adult