Articulatory Movements During Vowels in Speakers With Dysarthria and Healthy Controls

Purpose This study compared movement characteristics of markers attached to the jaw, lower lip, tongue blade, and dorsum during production of selected English vowels by normal speakers and speakers with dysarthria due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Parkinson disease (PD). The study asked the following questions: (a) Are movement measures different for healthy controls and speakers with ALS or PD, and (b) Are articulatory profiles comparable for speakers with ALS and speakers with PD? Method Nineteen healthy controls and 15 speakers with dysarthria participated in this study. The severity of dysarthria varied across individuals and between the 2 disorder groups. The stimuli were 10 words (i.e., seed, feed, big, dish, too, shoo, bad, cat, box, and dog) embedded into sentences read at a comfortable reading rate. Movement data were collected using the X-ray microbeam. Movement measures included distances, durations, and average speeds of vowel-related movement strokes. Results Differences were foun...