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Electropalatographic study of speech sound errors in adults with acquired aphasia
Author(s) -
WOOD SARA E,
HARDCASTLE BILL
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
international journal of language and communication disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.101
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1460-6984
pISSN - 1368-2822
DOI - 10.1111/j.1460-6984.1995.tb01713.x
Subject(s) - aphasia , psychology , speech sound , speech error , speech perception , linguistics , perception , speech disorder , auditory feedback , cognitive psychology , speech recognition , audiology , computer science , speech production , medicine , philosophy , neuroscience , psychiatry
There is considerable disagreement in the literature as to the precise nature or source of speech sound errors found in clients with acquired aphasia. Traditionally, a dichotomy between apraxic errors and phonemic paraphasic errors has been used to describe the speech errors made by these patients. This motoric‐linguistic division has been the centre of much debate. Researchers have reported overlap in the descriptions of apraxic and phonemic paraphasic errors despite the assumption that these errors arise from different levels in the speech planning and execution process. Recent research using electropalatography (EPG) has provided valuable spatial and temporal information about speech sound errors in clients with acquired aphasia previously unavailable through perceptual‐based analysis (Edwards & Miller, 1989; Hardcastle & Edwards, 1992). This study identifies, by means of EPG and acoustic analysis, regularities in the patterns of speech sound errors produced by five aphasic adults with different diagnoses. The classification scheme described by Hardcastle and Edwards (1992) is tested on these clients and the advantages of a fine‐grained analysis based on instrumental data exemplified. One hypothesis to be tested is that those errors previously identified by auditory analysis alone as linguistic in origin may more appropriately be regarded as arising from a motor programming deficit. This hypothesis is supported by results from the pilot study which investigated the speech sound errors of one aphasic patient considered to demonstrate phonemic paraphasia. These findings have important impliciations for speech and languge therapists. They can lead to improved diagnostic procedures and subsequently more effective therapy which can specifically target or compensate the source of the disruption.