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  • Title: Acoustic analysis of speech timing in Huntington's disease.
    Author: Hertrich I, Ackermann H.
    Journal: Brain Lang; 1994 Aug; 47(2):182-96. PubMed ID: 7953613.
    Abstract:
    Duration measurements at the acoustic speech signal of sentence utterances including syllable lengths, vowel durations, and voice-onset-time (VOT) were performed in 13 subjects with Huntington's disease (HD) and in 12 control speakers. First, all 13 HD subjects presented with increased variability of utterance duration and/or VOT. Second, a subgroup had reduced speech tempo concomitant with overproportional lengthening of short vowels. Presumably, these deviations result from slowed movement execution (bradykinesia) and delayed between-movement transitions. Third, durational parameters of phonetic timing, e.g. stress contrast, were largely unimpaired. In a further patient (HD14) severely reduced articulatory accuracy did not allow acoustic measurements. He presented with truncated, barely intelligible, diphthongized sentence utterances. A slight tendency for these deviations could be noted in two of the HD subjects who underwent acoustic analysis. Since all three subjects had a rather long disease duration, this constellation might represent an advanced stage of HD dysarthria into which the other syndromes ultimately will develop.
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