ERROR-REVISION IN THE SPONTANEOUS SPEECH OF APRAXIC SPEAKERS

Spontaneous speech samples from four men diagnosed with apraxia of spe ech were transcribed to examine the ways in which they attempted to re pair their speech errors. The study sought evidence for the presence o f production or perceptual constraints in error revision and for the p resence of a functional prearticulatory monitor. Three judges independ ently evaluated the transcriptions and audiotapes to identify instance s in which speakers revised speech errors. They then coded the nature of the relationship between the error and the revision. In previous re ports, the form of error repairs among normal speakers has been attrib uted to perceptual constraints, that is, determined by the needs of th e listener. Results of the present study suggest that the form of some error repairs among these speakers with apraxia of speech is not in t he service of the listener; rather, it conforms with production constr aints. It may be argued that some forms of error repair evidenced by t hese speakers, such as the prosodic marking of phonetic errors and pro sodic marking in the temporal domain (syllable segregation), may actua lly serve to exacerbate the listener's task of message decoding. In ad dition, these speakers offered little evidence of an efficient prearti culatory monitor. The time delays between interrupting the dow of spee ch in recognition of an error and the initiation of a revision suggest an impaired ability to plan revisions prior to the production of the error. (C) 1998 Academic Press.