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September 8, 2026Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology

Acoustic-prosodic markers in older adults with and without Parkinson’s disease

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Authors

LDLucas Manca Dal'AvaPBPlínio Almeida Barbosa

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Overview

Cross-sectional study reveals altered speech timing and prosody in older adults with Parkinson’s disease, highlighting the utility of remote mobile recordings for non-invasive screening.

Key Points

  • To describe and compare acoustic-prosodic measures from reading aloud and spontaneous speech in older adults with and without Parkinson’s disease using in-person and remote mobile phone recordings.
  • Analyzed 821 speech samples collected between 2020 and 2024 from 39 older adults (N=39; 19 males, 20 females; aged 60–93 years), including healthy controls and patients with Parkinson's disease across clinical stages.
  • Extracted 24 acoustic-prosodic features spanning fundamental frequency, intensity, voice quality, and pause structure using Praat’s Prosody Descriptor Extractor.
  • Evaluated sex-based group comparisons between individuals with Parkinson's disease and healthy controls using standardized effect sizes.
  • Speech rate showed a large effect size differentiating Parkinson's disease from healthy controls, while articulation rate, coefficient of variation for intensity, spectral emphasis, shimmer, and fundamental frequency standard deviation showed moderate effect sizes.
  • Individuals with Parkinson's disease exhibited consistent, sex-specific alterations characterized by slower speech rates, reduced pitch variability, increased intensity variability, and altered shimmer.
  • Temporal measures of speech timing showed the greatest descriptive utility for separating Parkinson's disease from typical age-related vocal changes.

Cite This Study

Dal'Ava et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9fd7ab58e84d0ff5b46810https://doi.org/10.1080/14015439.2026.2717302
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