Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Mar 11;67(3):811-820.
doi: 10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00577. Epub 2024 Feb 20.

Characterizing Speech Errors Across Primary Progressive Apraxia of Speech Subtypes

Katerina A Tetzloff  1 , Joseph R Duffy  1 , Heather M Clark  1 , Keith A Josephs  1 , Jennifer L Whitwell  2 , Rene L Utianski  1
Affiliations

Characterizing Speech Errors Across Primary Progressive Apraxia of Speech Subtypes

Katerina A Tetzloff et al. J Speech Lang Hear Res. .

Abstract

Purpose: Apraxia of speech (AOS) is a motor speech disorder affecting articulatory planning and speech programming. When AOS is the sole manifestation of neurodegeneration, it is termed primary progressive apraxia of speech (PPAOS). Recent work has shown that there are distinct PPAOS subtypes: phonetic, prosodic, and those that do not clearly align with either (mixed). PPAOS subtypes differ with respect to the predominating motor speech difficulties, as well as disease progression and underlying pathology. Because past studies have determined PPAOS subtype based on clinical impression, the goal of the present study was to quantitatively determine the distribution of speech error types across PPAOS subtypes in a word repetition task and to investigate how word complexity affects the type and number of speech errors across PPAOS subtypes.

Method: Forty-five patients with PPAOS (13 phonetic, 23 prosodic, and nine mixed) and 45 healthy controls produced multiple repetitions of words that varied in phonetic complexity. Sound additions, deletions, and substitutions/distortions (phonetic errors) and within-word segmentations (prosodic errors) were calculated.

Results: All three PPAOS groups produced significantly more errors than controls, but the total number of errors was comparable among subtypes. The phonetic group produced more phonetic-type errors compared to the prosodic group but comparable to the mixed group. The prosodic group produced more segmentations compared to the phonetic and mixed PPAOS groups. As word complexity increased, the total number of errors increased for PPAOS patients. The phonetic and prosodic groups were more likely to produce phonetic- and prosodic-type errors, respectively, as word complexity increased.

Conclusions: This study provides novel quantitative data showing that PPAOS subtype can be supported by the type and distribution of speech errors in a word repetition task. This may facilitate earlier, more reliable differential diagnosis and aid in disease prognosis, as PPAOS subtypes have distinct disease trajectories.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Mean number of errors per word by PPAOS subtype. PPAOS = primary progressive apraxia of speech.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Mean number of errors per word by phonetic complexity.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Ballard, K. J., Granier, J. P., & Robin, D. A. (2000). Understanding the nature of apraxia of speech: Theory, analysis, and treatment. Aphasiology, 14(10), 969–995. 10.1080/02687030050156575 - DOI
    1. Bates, D. M. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. 10.18637/jss.v067.i01 - DOI
    1. Bouvier, L., Monetta, L., & Martel-Sauvageau, V. (2022). Speech rate increase in primary progressive apraxia of speech and its cost on articulatory accuracy. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 36(10), 849–869. 10.1080/02699206.2021.1960622 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bouvier, L., Monetta, L., Vitali, P., Laforce, R., Jr., & Martel-Sauvageau, V. (2021). A preliminary look into the clinical evolution of motor speech characteristics in primary progressive apraxia of speech in Québec French. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 30(3S), 1459–1476. 10.1044/2020_AJSLP-20-00162 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Darley, F. L. (1967). Lacunae and research approaches to them. Brain Mechanisms Underlying, 236–240.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources