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Consonant and vowel distortions we hear in apraxia of speech: III
What is it about?
Consonant and vowel distortions don't change the meaning of words they way phonemic errors do. Listeners hear them as subtle, yet incorrect, speech sound versions. Hearing sound distortions is an important criterion for diagnosing apraxia of speech. In this third study about audible consonant and vowel distortions in apraxia of speech, we examined audio-recordings from 66 people with speech sound production difficulties after left-hemisphere stroke or trauma. They were divided into 2 groups based on a single measurement of prosody. We reasoned that those who scored abnormally on the prosody measure would be likely to have apraxia of speech. Our coders were highly trained and equipped with audio recordings, headphones, and a narrow phonetic transcription system that included 29 distortion codes (diacritic marks).
Why is it important?
The group who scored abnormally on the prosodic criterion for apraxia of speech produced more distortion errors than those who scored normally on this criterion. We think this means that distortion frequency helps separate people who have aphasia and apraxia of speech from those who have only aphasia. On the other hand, it seems the discrimination is far from perfect. Contrary to what traditional theories may have you believe, we found a lot of overlap between the groups.