Speech Science – Vowel Acoustics in People with Parkinson’s Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease that contributes to the progressive decline of motor function because of loss of dopamine-creating brain cells. Given the progressive decline of motor function, this disease shows characteristics of hypokinetic dysarthria as well as major signs of rigidity, tremor, and bradykinesia. In light with these effects, vowel acoustics in people with Parkinson’s disease has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Actually, for many individuals with Parkinson’s disease, hypokinetic dysarthria is a common condition, which is an indicator of motor speech disorders. Numerous studies have been carried out to examine motor speech disorders in Parkinson’s disease, particularly in relation to hypokinetic dysarthria. This paper examines some studies that have been conducted to evaluate the issue of hypokinetic dysarthria in people with Parkinson’s disease with regards to vowel acoustics. The article provides a summary of the articles and critique of the methodological issues in the studies. Summary of Articles Skodda, Gronheit & Schlegel (2012) conducted a study in which they examined whether vowel articulation in people with Parkinson’s disease is an indicator of certain changes in the progression of the disease. The study was carried out on the premise that hypokinetic dysarthria in Parkinson’s disease is a multifaceted impairment that affects different aspects of an individual’s speech including articulation, respiration, prosody and phonation. These researchers utilized a quantitative research approach i.e. pre-test, post-test study through which research participants were divided into two groups i.e. experimental group and control group. Pre-test and post-test data was collected and analyzed from each of these two groups to help answer the research question. The researchers concluded that vowel articulation in patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease is an indicator of specific changes in the progression of the disease. Vowel articulation impairment was found to be independent from global motor function though linked to gait dysfunction, vowel articulation measurement may have a potential of acting as an indicator of progression of axial disease. Watson & Munson (2008) examine Parkinson’s disease and the impact of lexical components on vowel articulation. In this regard, lexical components are phonological neighborhood density and word frequency, which are considered significant in the perception and production of speech. The study employed a pre-test, post-test quantitative...
References
Bang, Y., Min K., Sohn, Y. H., Cho, S. (2013). Acoustic Characteristics of Vowel Sounds in Patients with Parkinson Disease. Journal NeuroRehabilitation, 32(3), 649-654. doi:10.3233/nre-130887
Skodda, S., Grönheit, W., & Schlegel, U. (2012). Impairment of Vowel Articulation as a Possible Marker of Disease Progression in Parkinsons Disease. PLoS ONE, 7(2). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032132
Watson, P. J., & Munson, B. (2008). Parkinson's disease and the effect of lexical factors on vowel articulation, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 124(5): EL291–EL295.doi:10.1121/1.2987464
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