Audiology and Speech Pathology - Research Publications

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End date: 2009 × Start date: 2002 × Type: Conference Paper ×

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    Articulatory disturbance in Friedreich’s ataxia: An electropalatographic study
    Folker, JE ; Murdoch, BE ; Cahill, LM ; Delatycki, MS ; Corben, LA ; Vogel, AP (Wiley, 2009)
    Objective: To use the instrumentation of electropalatography (EPG) to investigate the spatial and temporal aspects of linguopalatal contact during consonant production in a group of individuals with Friedreich’s Ataxia (FRDA). Background: FRDA is an autosomal neurodegenerative disease primarily affecting the spinocerebellar tracts, the corticospinal path- ways and the dorsal columns. Clinical manifestation generally begins in childhood, with the individual becoming wheelchair bound in early adulthood and life expectancy being markedly reduced. Dysarthria constitutes a core symptom of FRDA, presenting between 5 and 19 years post onset of disease. Perceptual and acoustic studies have revealed an articulatory disturbance to be prominent in the dysarthria associated with FRDA. Methods: The subject group consisted of seven individuals, four females and three males, with confirmation of FRDA. The mean age of the group was 41.71 years (SD 5 8.3) with an age range of 35 to 56 years. A group of 14 non-neurologically impaired adults served as controls. The Reading EPG3 system was used to measure the amount and pattern of linguopalatal contact at the point of maximum contact and the consonant phase durations for an array of consonants, /t/, /l/, /s/, /k/. All consonants were word initial position, within words of CV and CVC construction, embedded into short sentences and repeated aloud five times by each subjects while wearing an EPG palate. Results: The FRDA group exhibited normal spatial configurations of linguopalatal contact. Temporal measures revealed significantly prolonged closure phase durations for each consonant singleton, con- tributing to longer consonant phase durations compared to the control group. Conclusions: The FRDA group demonstrated disturbances in artic- ulatory timing while maintaining normal linguopalatal contact pat- terns. The results are discussed in relation to the neuropathophysio- logical effects of spinocerebellar degeneration on speech motor control systems.