Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Acoustic Changes During Passage Reading In Speakers With Parkinson's Disease, Kimberly C. Grubbs

LSU Master's Theses

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate speech changes in Parkinson’s disease (PD) while reading a passage, using both local (i.e., segment level) and global (i.e., utterance level) acoustic measures.

Methods: 20 speakers participated in the study (10 PD, 10 neurologically healthy controls). The speakers were asked to read The Caterpillar passage in a conversational mode. A total of five acoustic measures were included (local: vowel duration, Euclidean distance between corner vowels and schwa; global: articulation rate, F0/intensity range). These acoustic measures were compared between two sentences located in the two positions within the paragraph, initial and final. …

Acoustic Realization Of Contrastive Stress In Individuals With Parkinson's Disease, Ana Maria Gaviria

LSU Master's Theses

This study investigated the acoustic correlates of contrastive stress produced by individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) to learn more about their ability to modulate acoustic cues to mark contrastive stress. Speech materials from 10 individuals with PD and 10 gender- and age-matched neurologically healthy controls (HC) were recorded and analyzed. The four acoustic measures (peak intensity, peak F0, vowel duration, and acoustic vowel space area) of stressed and unstressed syllables were compared to determine which acoustic parameters are preferentially employed by each group to mark contrastive stress. The results indicated that individuals with PD exhibited significant changes in vowel duration …

Using The Ambulatory Phonation Monitor To Measure The Vocal Parameters Of Older People With And Without Parkinson's Disease, Danielle Marie Boudreaux

LSU Master's Theses

Our project was designed to determine if there was a difference in vocal parameters, including mean fundamental frequency, mean amplitude, and total phonation time, between individuals diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and age-and gender-matched individuals without a diagnosis of any neurologic or neurodegenerative diseases (NO PD) using the Ambulatory Phonation Monitor (APM: KayPENTAX, Lincoln Park, New Jersey). The APM was designed to gather objective data in a naturalistic environment by having participants wear the device over the course of three 8-hour days. The APM measured total phonation time, mean amplitude, and mean fundamental frequency throughout that time. The participants wore …