Effects of loudness and complex speech on spatial and temporal precision in Parkinson's Disease

Abstract

The paper presents preliminary results of a speech motor control study of hypokinetic dysarthria in Parkinson's disease (PD). By means of EPG, the tongue contacts of two speakers with PD and two control speakers during the production of target words containing initial /t/ stops were analysed in normal and loud condition as well as in complex sentences. The preliminary results showed no effects of increasing loudness on duration and on the number of tongue contacts in speakers with PD. Furthermore, frication of the stop /p/ to [f] was found for one speaker in the acoustic analysis.