Patterns of Temporal Speech Organization Across Different Connected Speech Activities: Data from Greek Dysarthria

The goal of this study was to demonstrate the clinical utility of paired phonetic-acoustic analysis as a means to capture the atypical patterns of temporal organization of connected speech in dysarthria. Connected speech data from two Greek speakers with dysarthria (sentence, text reading, and spontaneous speech) and two typical controls were analyzed. The core speech deficits of each patient included articulatory slowness (patient 1) and inefficient phonation control (patient 2). Measures of phrasing organization (including breath group size and pause patterns) and laryngeal activity coordination (devoicing patterns and durational measures of voiceless stops) were calculated. Overall, acoustic and phonetic analysis was able to accurately reflect the complex effects of the neuromotor impairment and the adapted compesations on connected speech organization, and could potentially form the basis for the development of individualized intervention protocols.