Kinematic analysis of lingual function in dysarthric speakers with Parkinson's disease: An electromagnetic articulograph study

Abstract

Dysarthria in people with Parkinson's disease (PD) has been widely studied. However, a limited number of studies have investigated lingual function during speech production in this population. This study aimed to investigate lingual kinematics during speech production using electromagnetic articulography (AG-200 EMA). The PD group consisted of eight dysarthric speakers with PD and was matched with a group of eight controls. The tongue tip and tongue back movements of all participants during sentence production were recorded by EMA. Results showed that, perceptually, the participants with PD were mildly dysarthric. Kinematic results documented comparable (for alveolar sentence production) and increased (for velar sentence production) range of lingual movement in the PD group when compared to the control group. Lingual movement velocity, acceleration, and deceleration were also increased in the PD group, predominantly for the release phase of consonant production during sentence utterances. The PD group had longer duration in the production of alveolar consonant and comparable duration in the production of velar consonant. The results of the present study suggest the presence of impaired lingual control in individuals with PD. Increased range of articulatory movement, primarily in the release phase of consonant production, may account for articulatory imprecision in this population.

Keywords:

• Dysarthria
• Parkinson's disease
• articulation
• tongue
• kinematic
• electromagnetic articulography

Acknowledgements

This project was supported by a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (Grant No. 456017). The authors would like to thank Dr Mili S. Kuruvilla for her help in participant recruitment and data collection. We would also like to thank the participants for their co-operation in the study.