“…Indeed, age-related changes in perceptual speech characteristics and acoustic measures have been reported in adults typically over 60 years, including the production of imprecise consonants and vowels (Ryan, & Burk, 1974;Parnell & Amerman, 1987;Shuey, 1989;Amerman, & Parnell, 1990), decreases in diadochokinetic (DDK), speech and reading rates Ptacek, Sander, Maloney & Jackson, 1966;Ryan, 1972;Ryan, & Burk, 1974;Ramig, 1983;Oyer, & Deal, 1985;Amerman, & Parnell, 1992;Flanagan, & Dembowski, 2002), and increased phoneme, syllable and sentence durations (Smith, Wasowicz, & Preston, 1987;Parnell, & Amerman, 1996). In a study conducted by Ryan and Burk (1974), imprecise consonants and a slow rate of articulation were found to be two of five speech characteristics that were strong predictors of perceived age.…”