Untersuchungen der sprechmotorischen Kontrolle bei Parkinson-Patienten

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Mariam Hartinger
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2006 to 2008
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 31292168

Parkinson¿s disease is a movement disorder characterised mostly by imprecise consonant production and variable changes in speech rate. This type of speech disorder is called hypokinetic dysarthria and differs from other kinds of dysarthria, e.g. after traumatic brain injury. Besides pharmacological treatment, speech therapy remains the most important treatment for improving the quality of life. However, conventional speech therapy has long been known to be ineffective. In the early stage of this disease, which can also affect people younger than 40 years of age, the laryngeal system is affected in about 45% of cases. Due to the predominance of existing perceptive studies- that are relatively unreliable- further quantitative and qualitative investigations are necessary in order to understand the nature of the disorder and so improve the effectiveness of training methods. The very few existing articulatory studies examine mainly lip and jaw movements. The articulation abilities of the tongue ¿ which is the most important organ for articulation ¿ have hardly been investigated, presumably due to the fact that very few instrumental techniques are suitable. One of these is Electropalatography (EPG), which allows the analysis of tongue movements. With this research project I intend to gain new insights into the investigation of hypokinetic dysarthria using quantitative articulatory methods. By comparing different levels of severity I want to examine the effects of increasing speech rate on the stability and intelligibility of sound production. I will be analysing the results in terms of the practical benefit for speech therapy.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Host: Dr. Christine Cnossen