title: [Pilot study of the acoustic values of the vowels in Spanish as indicators of the severity of dysarthria].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The acoustic analysis is a tool that provides objective data on changes of speech in dysarthria.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate, in the ataxic dysarthria, the relationship between the vowel space area (VSA), the formant centralization ratio (FCR) and the mean of the primary distances with the speech intelligibility.
  
  
  METHODS
  A sample of fourteen Spanish speakers, ten with dysarthria and four controls, was used. The values of first and second formants in 140 vowels extracted of 140 words were analyzed. To calculate the level of intelligibility seven listeners were involved and a task of identification verbal stimuli was used.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The dysarthric subjects have less contrast between middle and high vowels and between back vowels. Significant differences in the VSA, FCR and mean of the primary distances compared to control subjects (p = 0.007, 0.005 and 0.030, respectively) are observed. Regression analysis show the relationship between VSA and the mean of primary distances with the level of speech intelligibility (r = 0.60 and 0.74, respectively).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Ataxic dysarthria subjects have lower contrast and vowel centralization in carrying out the vowels. The acoustic measures studied in this preliminary work have a high sensitivity in the detection of dysarthria but only the VSA and the mean of primary distances provide information on the severity of this type of speech disturbance.
authors.affiliation: CREN Salud (Capacitacion y Rehabilitacion Especializado en Neurologia), Tenerife, Espana.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Delgado-Hernandez
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004401:Dysarthria / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility