Purpose: Most acoustic and articulatory studies on /l/ have focused on either duration, formant frequencies, or tongue shape during the constriction interval. Only a limited set of data exists for the transition characteristics of /l/ to and from surrounding vowels. The aim of this study was to examine second formant (F2) transition…

Purpose: This study compared movement characteristics of markers attached to the jaw, lower lip, tongue blade, and dorsum during production of selected English vowels by normal speakers and speakers with dysarthria due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Parkinson disease (PD). The study asked the following questions: (a) Are movement…

This study examined speaking-rate-induced spectral and temporal variability of F2 formant trajectories for target words produced in a carrier phrase at speaking rates ranging from fast to slow. Results suggest that a sliding-based model of acoustic variability associated with speaking rate change only partially accounts for the data obtained.…

This study applied four direct magnitude estimation (DME) standards to the evaluation of speech from four individuals with dysarthria and three neurologically normal speakers. It found a fixed set of sentence-level utterances was scaled differently depending on the specific standard used. Results are discussed in terms of possible standardization…

The primary objective of the present study was to document tone production and intelligibility deficits in Mandarin-speaking persons with cerebral palsy (CP). Spastic, athetoid, and mixed types of CP were studied, along with a control group, to investigate the possibility of tone production and intelligibility deficits that were differentially…

Describes the major types of acoustic analysis available for the study of speech, identifies equipment and other components needed for a modern speech-analysis laboratory, and lists possible measurements for various aspects of phonation, articulation, and resonance, as they might be seen in neurologically disordered speech. (Author/DB)

The primary objective of this position paper is to assess the theoretical and empirical support that exists for the Mayo Clinic view of motor speech disorders in general, and for oromotor, nonverbal tasks as a window to speech production processes in particular. Literature both in support of and against the Mayo clinic view and the associated use…

Articulatory discoordination is often said to be an important feature of the speech production disorder in dysarthria, but little experimental work has been done to identify and specify the coordination difficulties. The present study evaluated the coordination of labial and lingual gestures for /u/ production in persons with Parkinson's disease…

The task of syllable alternating motion rate (AMR) (also called diadochokinesis) is suitable for examining speech disorders of varying degrees of severity and in individuals with varying levels of linguistic and cognitive ability. However, very limited information on this task has been published for subjects with traumatic brain injury (TBI). This…

Acoustic data for 26 typically speaking 9 to 15 year olds for the /s/ frication were collected and evaluated. Analysis of the reference data set indicated that acoustic characterization of /s/ is appropriately and optimally obtained from the midpoint of /s/, represented in linear scale, referenced to individual linguistic-phonetic contexts,…

Purpose: This study was designed to determine whether within-speaker fluctuations in speech intelligibility occurred among speakers with dysarthria who produced a reading passage, and, if they did, whether selected linguistic and acoustic variables predicted the variations in speech intelligibility. Method: Participants with dysarthria included a…