Abstract
<p class="BodyTextNext"><em>Evaluation of precision of consonant articulation is commonly used metric in assessment of pathological speech. </em><em>However, up to date most of the research on consonant characteristics was performed on English while there are obvious language-specific differences. The aim of the current study was therefore to investigate the patterns of consonant articulation in Czech across 6 stop consonants with respect to age and gender. The database used consisted of 30 female and 30 male healthy participants. Four acoustic variables including voice onset time (VOT), VOT ratio and two spectral moments were analyzed. The Czech plosives /p/, /t/ and /k/ were found to be characterized by short voicing lag (average VOT ranged from 14 to 32 ms) while voiced plosives /b/, /d/ and /g/ by long voicing lead (average VOT ranged from -79 to -91 ms). </em><em>Furthermore, we observed significantly longer duration of both VOT </em><em>(p &lt; 0.05) </em><em>and VOT ratio </em><em>(p &lt; 0.01) </em><em>of voiceless plosives in female compared to male gender. Finally, we revealed a significant negative correlation between age and duration of voiceless </em><em>(</em><em>r = -0.36, p </em><em>&lt; 0.05) </em><em>as well as voiced VOT </em><em>(</em><em>r = -0.45, p =</em><em> 0.01) </em><em>in female but not in male participants.</em></p>
Highlights
The elderly population is growing fast all over the world and the number of elderly subjects with speech/language disorders has increased rapidly [1]
Considering that early diagnosis of neurological diseases is essential in improving the patients' life, research focused on speech characteristics of healthy speakers and aging effects is vital for clinical purposes
Considering voiceless plosives, significantly longer duration of voice onset time (VOT) and VOT ratio was found in men compared to women for stop consonant /p/ (p < 0.05; p < 0.01) as well as /t/ (p < 0.01; p < 0.001)
Summary
The elderly population is growing fast all over the world and the number of elderly subjects with speech/language disorders has increased rapidly [1]. It has been previously demonstrated that abnormalities of speech in these disorders may occur several years before the diagnosis is established [2,3,4] and may even be the earliest indicator of the disease [5]. The natural changes of voice and speech occur in healthy population as a consequence of normal aging process. Considering that early diagnosis of neurological diseases is essential in improving the patients' life, research focused on speech characteristics of healthy speakers and aging effects is vital for clinical purposes. Without a general model of speech aging for normal healthy, elder individuals, it will be difficult to recognize whether the changes of speech are related to presymptomatic changes due to development of neurodegenerative diseases or if it is just a simple effect of normal aging process
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