Reception of Communicative Functions of Prosody in Hypokinetic Dysarthria due to Parkinson's Disease.

Background: Mapping adequacy of receptive prosodic abilities in speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria due to Parkinson's disease (PD) is useful, because therapy of disturbed production of prosody relies on adequate reception of prosody. There is evidence for a deficit of reception of emotional prosody in PD.

Objective: The present study aims at presenting a comprehensive picture of the reception of various communicative functions of prosody in hypokinetic dysarthria due to PD.

The effect of intensive speech rate and intonation therapy on intelligibility in Parkinson's disease.

Purpose: Most studies on treatment of prosody in individuals with dysarthria due to Parkinson's disease are based on intensive treatment of loudness. The present study investigates the effect of intensive treatment of speech rate and intonation on the intelligibility of individuals with dysarthria due to Parkinson's disease.

Methods: A one group pretest-posttest design was used to compare intelligibility, speech rate, and intonation before and after treatment.

Automated Speech Rate Measurement in Dysarthria.

Purpose: In this study, a new algorithm for automated determination of speech rate (SR) in dysarthric speech is evaluated. We investigated how reliably the algorithm calculates the SR of dysarthric speech samples when compared with calculation performed by speech-language pathologists.

Method: The new algorithm was trained and tested using Dutch speech samples of 36 speakers with no history of speech impairment and 40 speakers with mild to moderate dysarthria.

Assessment of prosodic communicative efficiency in Parkinson's disease as judged by professional listeners.

This study examines the impact of Parkinson's disease (PD) on communicative efficiency conveyed through prosody. A new assessment method for evaluating productive prosodic skills in Dutch speaking dysarthric patients was devised and tested on 36 individuals (18 controls, 18 PD patients). Three professional listeners judged the intended meanings in four communicative functions of Dutch prosody: Boundary Marking, Focus, Sentence Typing, and Emotional Prosody.