Dysarthric Processes in First and Second Language Used by Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to present the characteristics of first (L1, Polish) and second (L2, English) language dysarthria in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) after prolonged coma. The study is based on acoustic analysis of speech of six patients who knew English to various degrees before trauma. The results suggest that TBI patients use linguistic processes that appear in children's developmental speech. However, there are considerable differences in the use of these processes: unlike children, post-coma individuals have a fully established phonology and they use processes as phonetic strategies based on organic speech problems to compensate for insufficient control and/or primary motor deficits (e.g., muscle paresis, spasticity, ataxia) of their articulatory musculature. Thus, their processes are more regular and easier to predict. Although dysarthria is an organic disorder, processes used in L1 differ to some extent from those used in L2, because language proficiency in L2 is only moderate due to the fact that L2 learning began at puberty.