Research Article

Investigation acoustic intelligibility of high and low vowels in healthy adults and those with Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

Background and Aim: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurological disorder resulting from significant decrease of dopamine in the brain. The main and most common symptom of speech disorder associated with Parkinson’s disease, which is kind of dysarthria, is reduction in speech intelligibility. Since this disorder represents damages to acoustic aspects, researchers are attracted to study the relationship between these two disorders. In this study, we assessed the comparison of speech vowels between normal people and patients with Parkinson’s disease.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 18 voice samples of patients with Parkinson’s disease and the same number of samples from normal people in a voiceless environment were recorded and analyzed by Praat software. Data analysis was performed by independent samples and Mann-Whitney tests.
Results: All variables investigated in two groups showed significant differences. In adults with Parkinson’s disease, F1-F0 in low vowels showed a considerable reduction in respect to normal people (p<0.001). In addition, F2-F1 in high vowels represented a significant decrease in these patients (p<0.05).
Conclusion: The results indicate that Parkinson’s disease affects formant frequency in patients compared with normal people. Reduction in speech intelligibility can be accurately measured using acoustic procedure.

1. Schulz GM, Grant MK. Effects of speech therapy and pharmacologic and surgical treatments on voice and speech in Parkinson's disease: a review of the literature. J Commun Disord. 2000;33(1):59-88.
2. Goberman AM, Elmer LW. Acoustic analysis of clear versus conversational speech in individuals with Parkinson disease. J Commun Disord. 2005;38(3):215-30.
3. Ziegler W, Hoole P, Hartmann E, von Cramon D. Accelerated speech in dysarthria after acquired brain injury: acoustic correlates. Br J Disord Commun. 1988;23(3):215-28.
4. Kent RD, Kent JF, Weismer G, Duffy JR. What dysarthrias can tell us about the neural control of speech. J Phon. 2000;28(3):273-302.
5. Richter S, Schoch B, Ozimek A, Gorissen B, Hein-Kropp C, Kaiser O, et al. Incidence of dysarthria in children with cerebellar tumors: a prospective study. Brain Lang. 2005;92(2):153-67.
6. Kent RD, Weismer G, Kent JF, Rosenbek JC. Toward phonetic intelligibility testing in dysarthria. J Speech Hear Disord. 1989;54(4):482-99.
7. Kent RD. Intelligibility in speech disorders: theory, measurement and management. 1st ed. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company; 1992.
8. Bunton K, Weismer G. The relationship between perception and acoustics for a high-low vowel contrast produced by speakers with dysarthria. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2001;44(6):1215-28.
9. Kent RD, Vorperian HK, Kent JF, Duffy JR.Voice dysfunction in dysarthria: application of the Multi-Dimensional Voice Program. J Commun Disord. 2003;36(4):281-306.
10. Kent RD, Weismer G, Kent JF, Vorperian HK, Duffy JR. Acoustic studies of dysarthric speech: methods, progress, and potential. J Commun Disord. 1999;32(3):141-86.
11. Miller N, Allcock L, Jones D, Noble E, Hildreth AJ, Burn DJ. Prevalence and pattern of perceived intelligibility changes in Parkinson's disease. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2007;78(11):1188-90.
12. Kent RD. Vocal tract acoustics. J Voice. 1993;7(2):97-117.
IssueVol 22 No 3 (2013) QRcode
SectionResearch Article(s)
Keywords
Parkinson’s disease speech intelligibility acoustic analysis vowel
Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
Javadipour S, Ghorbani A, Moradi N, Nourallahi Moghadam H, Biglarian A. Investigation acoustic intelligibility of high and low vowels in healthy adults and those with Parkinson’s disease. Aud Vestib Res. 2017;22(3):83-88.