Studies have shown that writing impairment is heterogeneous within the AD population; however, there are certain aspects of the writing process that are more vulnerable than others and may serve as diagnostic signs. Identifying patterns of writing impairment at different stages of AD may help to chart disease progression and assist in the development of appropriate interventions.
It is well-known that North American English /r/ may be produced by a number of different tongue shapes. This was first reported in detail by Delattre and Freeman (1968), who examined x-ray data from 46 speakers from various regions of the United States and identified six basic tongue shapes used by speakers of “rhotic” dialects to produce /r/. It is unclear, however, whether different shapes are characteristic of particular dialects or geographic regions, or a matter of individual variation based on anatomy, developmental history, etc. In this study, we review findings from a number of published x-ray and MRI studies of tongue shapes for /r/ using speakers from various dialect regions. In addition, we characterize the variability of tongue shapes used for /r/ in an unpublished x-ray database of elderly men with normal speech from the area of Cincinnati, OH. Results show that distinct tongue shape patterns in /r/ production occur both within and across dialect regions, suggesting the primacy of subject-specific factors over dialectal effects. [Work supported by NIH.]
Lombard speech refers to the well-known effect by which speakers talk differently in a noisy environment than they would in a quiet environment. This difference involves both increased loudness and acoustic phonetic characteristics that enhance intelligibility. Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients who show reduced intelligibility of speech have also been shown to exhibit impaired sensory integration of auditory feedback [Kiran Larsen, JSLHR, 2001]. In this paper, we examine the Lombard effect on speech in noise by PD patients and healthy age-matched controls. The results of acoustic phonetic measures suggest that the Lombard speech behavior of PD patients without dysarthria resembles that of control subjects both in quiet and in noise. However, patients with mild-to-moderate dysarthria show fewer effects of Lombard speech, suggesting that their ability to adjust the intelligibility of their speech in noise is correlated with their level of dysarthria.
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