The pauses in the speech of individuals with Alzheimer's dementia. Case studies.

  • Jhennifer Rodríguez Universidad de los Andes, Venezuela
  • Hernán Martínez Universidad de los Andes, Venezuela
  • Beatriz Valles Universidad del Zulia, Venezuela.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/rlog.58619
Keywords: pauses, prosody, speech, Alzheimer.

Abstract

Based on the fact that clinical manifestations of Alzheimer's disease show together with communication and discourse problems, the objective of this study is to analyze and classify pauses present in the oral discourse of two individuals having this kind of dementia. A corpus-based study from speech samples collected by Laboratorio de Neurociencias from University of Zulia was made. Voiced and voiceless utterances showing pauses were considered, and duration as the acoustic parameter was particularly studied. Pause showed in the discourse made by patients with Alzheimer's disease reveals linguistic and cognitive impairments. The discourse analyzed from the two speech samples reveals a large number of pauses used in longer periods of time. The results from this study could be considered as early signs that pauses are prosodic elements that show differences in the discourse of patients diagnosed with this type of dementia. Pauses could also be considered as possible parameters for defining linguistic and cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's disease.

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Published
2015-05-07
How to Cite
Rodríguez J., Martínez H. y Valles B. (2015). The pauses in the speech of individuals with Alzheimer’s dementia. Case studies. Revista de Investigación en Logopedia, 5(1), 40-59. https://doi.org/10.5209/rlog.58619
Issue
Vol. 5 No. 1 (2015)
Section
Artículos

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