SYLLABIC TIMING IN DYSARTHRIA

A new, intensity-based method of measuring syllable duration was used to assess syllabic timing in 75 patients with dysarthria of predominan tly traumatic and cerebro-vascular origin and in 30 normal subjects. T he applied speech tasks included repetitions of sentences containing c hains of plosive-vowel-syllables. The logarithm of the duration of the syllable carrying sentence accent proved to be particularly highly co rrelated with perceived speech rate. Among the potential sources of te mporal variability, segmental influences and the influence of sentence stress were examined. Further, the between-sentence variation of syll able duration was assessed. The resulting measures of variability were correlated with the severity of dysarthric impairment. A strengthenin g of normal effects was found in the consonant-related variation, wher eas intrinsic vowel effects and the influence of sentence stress were largely reduced. These results are discussed from the viewpoint of tim ing theories in speech and limb motor control. They are considered to provide a valuable background against which the speech impairments of specific neurologic groups can be tested.