Abstract:

Since the mora is the phonologically isochronic unit in Japanese, the proportion of impaired morae may be used as an indicator of the temporal impairment of speech. In spasmodicdysphonia (SD), symptoms occur sporadically and at three levels: (1) voice quality, (2) phonological, and (3) fluency. In previous work [Kumada et al., Jpn. J. Logoped. Phoniatr. 38, 176--181 (1997)], the ``Mora Method'' was proposed to evaluate the severity of SD in Japanese-speaking patients, with the severity represented by the proportion of impaired morae in a 25-morae sentence. Since counting aloud is a fairly rhythmic task, this paper studies using a proportion of impaired syllables in a counting task to characterize the severity of impairment in English-peaking SD patients. In addition to perceptual syllable-by-syllable judgments, the paper also examines timing relations of number-to-number and syllable-to-syllable intervals for comparison with syllable-impairment and overall-quality rating scale judgments. These comparisons should help establish the usefulness of perceptual syllable-by-syllable judgments to represent the severity of fluency impairment in English-speaking SD patients. [Work supported by NIH DC-00865 to Haskins Laboratories and by St. John's University.]