Ataxic Dysarthria

Abstract

Although ataxic dysarthria has been studied with various methods in several languages, questions remain concerning which features of the disorder are most consistent, which speaking tasks are most sensitive to the disorder, and whether the different speech production subsystems are uniformly affected. Perceptual and acoustic data were obtained from 14 individuals (seven men, seven women) with ataxic dysarthria for several speaking tasks, including sustained vowel phonation, syllable repetition, sentence recitation, and conversation. Multidimensional acoustic analyses of sustained vowel phonation showed that the largest and most frequent abnormality for both men and women was a long-term variability of fundamental frequency. Other measures with a high frequency of abnormality were shimmer and peak amplitude variation (for both sexes) and jitter (for women). Syllable alternating motion rate (AMR) was typically slow and irregular in its temporal pattern. In addition, the energy maxima and minima often were highly variable across repeated syllables, and this variability is thought to reflect poorly coordinated respiratory function and inadequate articulatory/voicing control. Syllable rates tended to be slower for sentence recitation and conversation than for AMR, but the three rates were highly similar. Formant-frequency ranges during sentence production were essentially normal, showing that articulatory hypometria is not a pervasive problem. Conversational samples varied considerably across subjects in intelligibility and number of words/ morphemes in a breath group. Qualitative analyses of unintelligible episodes in conversation showed that these samples generally had a fairly well-defined syllable pattern but subjects differed in the degree to which the acoustic contrasts typical of consonant and vowel sequences were maintained. For some individuals, an intelligibility deficit occurred in the face of highly distinctive (and contrastive) acoustic patterns.

Phonarticulatory diadochokinesis in young and elderly individuals

“…The information derived from these tasks may help as a basic reference for the interpretation of more complex tasks. Besides, more detailed analysis of this test that includes temporal and amplitude variability can provide useful information for the comprehension of pathophysiological processes 14 . however, before checking for the sensitiveness of this task for the speech motor disorders, it is important to know the behavior of individuals without such disorder to produce references for comparisons.…”

“…. In the literature there are reports on speed reduction, worsen of accuracy and inconsistency of oral diadochokinesia in a large range of neurological disorders and even in some functional disorders 3,8,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] . Generally, the ataxias seem to produce a greater impact on the diadochokinesia with an important reduction of the speech rate 16 , despite of some differences pointed out in Parkinson' s disease 15 .…”

Characteristics of Diadochokinesis in Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease

“…DDK rate tends to be slowed for both ataxic and spastic dysarthria relative to age-and gender-matched healthy controls, but may be slow, normal, or even accelerated for individuals with hypokinetic dysarthria [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. A recent study by Ozawa et al [12] further suggests that the nature of the slowing differs for individuals with spastic and ataxic dysarthria.…”

“…In contrast to studies focusing on energy extremes (e.g., amplitude maxima or minima), studies investigating energy characteristics of DDK in ataxic dysarthria tend to focus on energy variability. At least some studies report that intensity characteristics (e.g., amplitude minima and maxima) are more variable in DDK tasks produced by individuals with ataxic dysarthria compared to healthy controls [7,14].…”

Effet de l’accélération artificielle du signal de parole sur la perception des dysarthries cérébelleuses: à propos de deux cas

“…Sur le plan physiopathologique, la perte de coordination et de la précision des mouvements liée à l'atteinte est à l'origine d'une dysrégulation avant tout temporelle de l'articulation de la parole [1,2] . Pour Ackermann et al [3] , la limitation des gestes articulatoires ne peut pas compenser complètement l'exécution ralentie des mouvements dans les cas les plus marqués de bradykinésie.…”