LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:10 October 2014
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Perceptual Speech Characteristics of Cerebellar Dysarthria
Associated with Lesions in Different Cerebellar Loci

Vandana.V.P. Ph.D.
Manjula.R. Ph.D.

Abstract

The perceptual method of classifying dysarthria is considered the “gold standard” for clinically differentiating the types of dysarthria. Darley et al., 1 pioneered the use of perceptual classification system to identify clusters of salient perceptual characteristics in speech that are associated with lesions in the central and peripheral nervous system. This system is also popularly referred to as the “Mayo Clinic Dysarthria Research” 1. Many researchers who investigate the acoustic and physiologic bases of dysarthrias also use the perceptual classification system. The present study attempts to analyse the perceptual speech characteristics in dysarthria associated with lesions in different cerebellar loci.

Key words: Cerebellum, dysarthria, perceptual analysis

Introduction

Normal speech production requires good coordination between the various structures and its response to various intrinsic and extrinsic influences. It is produced by the smooth coordination of five components of speech mechanism including respiration, phonation, resonance, articulation and prosody. When one or any combination of the five components is affected by a neuromotor disturbance, it leads to motor speech disorders such as dysarthria and apraxia. Ataxic dysarthria is caused due damage to the cerebellum or associated structures.Three deviant clusters of abnormal speech characteristics were reported by Darley et al., 1 in ataxic dysarthria. They include (a) articulatory inaccuracy (b) prosodic excess (c) phonatory - prosodic insufficiency.

There are very few studies, which have aimed to determine the characteristics of ataxic dysarthria, based on the different lesion sites in the cerebellum 2, 3. There is need for a study that includes perceptual measures to evaluate the performance of subjects with lesions restricted to different cerebellar loci, in order to see if there is region specific speech motor control in ataxic dysarthria. There is a need for a detailed study probing into the differential speech subsystem involvement including perceptual tasks to identify speech motor control by specific region in the cerebellum. The study is planned to fulfill this objective. Malayalam language was chosen for the study as the investigator was a native speaker of Malayalam and also because of the accessibility and availability of subjects with lesions in different cerebellar loci from different hospitals in Kerala state of India where Malayalam is spoken by majority of people.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Vandana.V.P. Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Speech Pathology and Audiology
Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology
NIMHANS
Bangalore-560 029
Karnatala
India
vpvandana@gmail.com

Manjula.R. Ph.D.
Professor of Speech Pathology
Department of Speech-Language Pathology
All India Institute of Speech and Hearing
Mysore 570006
Karnataka
India

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