Movements by Parkinsonian speakers have often been reported as characterized by a reduction in amplitude and speed, due to the type of dysarthria that is usually associated to the disease, i.e. hypokinetic dysarthria. Such general features have an impact on both segmental and prosodic speech characteristics, as reduction phenomena are reported, concerning both the oral phonetic space used and the prosodic modulation realized by speakers.
This paper aims at investigating both segmental and prosodic characteristics of Italian Parkinsonian speech, by devoting specific attention to 1) amplitude, duration and timing of labialization related to posterior vowels, as for the segmental level; 2) both duration of prosodic units (syllables, utterance) and amplitude, duration and timing of pitch events, as far as prosody is concerned.
Acoustic and articulatory (AG501) data are reported on speech by four mild-to-severe Italian dysarthric Parkinson speakers and four peer healthy controls. The hypothesis is that, in line with the literature, measurements regarding Parkinson speech usually show reduced values in comparison to those regarding healthy speech. However, besides the expected general tendency to a reduction in speech gesture amplitude, pitch modulation and articulation rate, results suggest a complex picture that also involves increased values, possibly related to compensatory strategies.
Cite as: Fivela, B.G., d'Apolito, S.I., Prizio, G.D. (2020) Labialization and Prosodic Modulation in Italian Dysarthric Speech by Parkinsonian Speakers: A Preliminary Investigation. Proc. Speech Prosody 2020, 828-832, doi: 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2020-169
@inproceedings{fivela20_speechprosody,
author={Barbara Gili Fivela and Sonia Immacolata d'Apolito and Giorgia Di Prizio},
title={{Labialization and Prosodic Modulation in Italian Dysarthric Speech by Parkinsonian Speakers: A Preliminary Investigation}},
year=2020,
booktitle={Proc. Speech Prosody 2020},
pages={828--832},
doi={10.21437/SpeechProsody.2020-169}
}