Articulatory Kinematics in Neurogenic Speech Disorders

描述(申请人提供)：这是一项研究与帕金森病(PD)和肌萎缩侧索硬化症(ALS)相关的神经原性语言障碍的语音清晰度缺陷的发音基础的提案。这项拟议的工作使用X射线微束(发音运动学)、语音声学和语音清晰度测量来解决主要的描述性需求，以及临床和理论上相关的假设。对构音障碍患者的语言行为知之甚少，对构音障碍患者的唇部和下颌行为的了解仅限于有限类型的语音材料和测量策略。本提案包括各种语音材料，以允许对语音产生行为的发音运动学(以及这些运动的语音声学和可理解性结果)进行广泛的表征。描述关节运动学的一种方法是通过测量关节工作空间(即，范围的参数化)。一个中心假设是，一方面以运动学定义的这些发音工作空间的大小，另一方面是声学工作空间的大小和语音可理解性之间的关系。具体地说，我们通过几种方式测试了这一观点，即发音减少是ALS和PD患者清晰度降低的主要原因。这一假说已经在第一个资助期被证明适用于两个障碍组中的每一组说话者，现在将在神经受损的说话者中进行研究，这些说话者被要求控制语音变量，如速率、响度和清晰度，以创造发音运动幅度的差异。另一个主要的研究领域是确定构音障碍的发音协调的性质和可能的障碍。构音障碍通常被描述为具有显著的发音不协调成分，但存在的少量相关数据并未揭示出典型教科书描述中可能预期的那种坦率的协调障碍。从第一个资助周期中发现的协调度小异常，但对于特定语音序列来说，基本上是正常的协调“形式”，将通过对其他序列的分析以及对这些患者和神经学健康对照的发音尺度的分析来跟进。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a proposal to study the articulatory underpinnings of speech intelligibility deficits in the neurogenic speech disorders associated with Parkinson disease (PD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The proposed work uses x-ray microbeam (articulatory kinematic), speech acoustic, and speech intelligibility measures to address a major descriptive need, as well as a clinically- and theoretically-relevant hypothesis. Very little is known about lingual behavior in dysarthrias, and what is known about labial and mandibular behavior in dysarthria is confined to a limited type of speech material and measurement strategy. The present proposal includes a variety of speech materials to allow a broad characterization of articulatory kinematics (and the speech acoustic and intelligibility results of those motions) for speech production behavior. One way in which the articulatory kinematics will be characterized is by means of a measure of articulatory working space (i.e., parameterization of ranges). A central hypothesis is that there is a relationship between the size of these articulatory working spaces defined kinematically on the one hand, and the size of the acoustic working spaces and speech intelligibility on the other hand. Specifically, we test the idea, in several ways, that articulatory reduction is the primary segmental reason for reduced intelligibility in persons with ALS and PD. The hypothesis has been shown in the first funding period to hold across speakers within each of the two disorder groups, and will now be studied within neurologically-impaired speakers who are asked to control speech variables such as rate, loudness, and clarity so as to create variation in the magnitude of articulatory movements. Another major area of study is to identify the nature and possible disorder of articulatory coordination in dysarthria. Dysarthria is often described as having a prominent component of articulatory dyscoordination, but the small amount of relevant data that exist have not revealed the kind of frank coordination disorder that might be expected from typical textbook descriptions. A finding from the first funding cycle of small abnormalities in the degree of coordination, but an essentially-normal 'form' of coordination for a particular phonetic sequence will be followed up with analyses of additional sequences, as well as with the inclusion of analyses of articulatory scale in these patients and in neurologically-healthy controls.