Speech and oral motor learning in individuals with cerebellar atrophy

The purpose of this study was to determine whether cerebellar pathology int erferes with motor learning for either speech or novel tasks. Practice effe cts were contrasted between persons with cerebellar cortical atrophy (CCA) and control participants on previously learned real speech, nonsense speech , and novel nonspeech oral-movement tasks. Studies of limb motor learning s uggested that control participants would evidence reduced variability incre ased speed of movement, and reduced movement amplitude with practice as com pared with the CCA group. No significant differences were found between the real- and nonsense-speech tasks. For both speech tasks, although neither g roup reduced their movement variability with practice, both groups signific antly reduced law closing displacement and velocity with practice. For the novel nonspeech oral-movement task, no change with practice was observed in either group in terms of variability amplitude, or peak velocity. No effec ts of cerebellar pathology were seen in either the speech- or oral-movement tasks. These results demonstrated that with practice of speech tasks, a pr eviously learned motor skill, movement speed and displacement decreased in both groups. Therefore, the effects of practice differed between previously learned speech tasks and the novel oral-movement task regardless of cerebe llar pathology.