| Abstract: | It is an established fact that language is the chief distinctive
feature of humans. Unfortunately, there are a number of
individuals missing usage of language and/or speech partially or
entirely, from the beginning or lately, momentarily or for a long
time, usually for defined reasons or for reasons which cannot yet
be explained. This paper attempts to investigate the extent of
abnormality in intonation patterns and speaking rate of the speech
of an individual with Flaccid Dysarthria1. The subject2 was
diagnosed as a Primary Lateral Sclerosis patient, which is a
progressive degenerative motorneuron disease, that is, nerve cells
in the body gradually die off. It affects only some of the nerve
cells in the body—those that control voluntary movement of
muscles. The main objective of this study is to acoustically
analyze the patient’s vowels, consonants, intonation contours and
duration.
Acoustic methods were employed to examine the intonation
contours and speaking rate of the patient’s speech. More
specifically, the data were from solicitation and spontaneous
utterances of the subject. They were digitally recorded, sampled
and quantized, then fed into a speech analyzer software called
Praat. The interpretations of the data were done on the basis of the
facts revealed by the software. Accordingly, the patient’s
intonation contours and speaking rate were found to be deviant. |
