The Foreign Accent Syndrome a Norwegian case study

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The Foreign Accent Syndrome - a Norwegian case
study

• Inger Moen
• Hanne Gram Simonsen
• Signhild Skogdal

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A Norwegian FAS patient with a Russian accent

• The patient, BH, is a lady, about 35 years of
  age, living in Kirkenes.
• She has an early form of Multiple Sclerosis.
• No dysarthria (Frenchay Dysarthria Assessment)
• No indication of aphasia

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Speech characteristics of BH

• Deviant vowel and consonant articulations
• Deviant rhythmical patterns
• Deviant pitch patterns

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Examples of deviant segmental articulations

• Palatalisation
• Lowering of vowels
• Deviant liprounding
• Inappropriate voicing of plosives
• Fricative articulation of glides

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Examples of deviant prosody and syllable structure

• Vowel lengthening
• Vowel insertion
• Syllable simplification (dropping of final
  consonants)
• Deviant fundamental frequency

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The observers impression

• Why a foreign accent?
• Why a Russian accent?

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FAS a motor speech disorder?

• Five articulatory sub-systems
• Glottis
• Velum
• Tongue body
• Tongue tip
• Lips

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The articulation process

• Planning the sequence of movements required to
  achieve motor goals for each phoneme
• Synchronising articulators
• Adapting the plans according to phonetic and
  other contextual factors

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FAS reduced articulation process

• Reduced ability to plan the sequence of
  articulatory movements
• Vowel insertion
• Dropping of consonants
• Reduced ability to synchronise articulators
• Inappropriate voicing
• Lowering of vowels
• Palatalasation
• Inappropriate liprounding

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Gestural phonologyVocal tract variables

• GLOTTAL (glottal aperture)
• VELIC (velic aperture)
• SKELETAL
• Lips (lip
  protrusion) (lip aperture)
• ORAL Tongue tip (tongue tip
  constriction location)
• 
  (tongue tip constriction degree)
• Tongue body (tongue body
  constriction
• location)
• 
  (tongue body constriction
  degree)
• Gestural scores (simplified) Anita

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Gestural scores (simplified) Anita
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Overscaling and underscaling of vocal tract
variables

• Overscaling of lip protrusion too much
  liprounding
• Overscaling of tongue tip and tongue body glides
  becoming fricatives
• Underscaling of tongue tip and tongue body
  constriction lowering of vowels

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Incorrect phasing of gestures

• Incorrect phasing of glottal and oral gestures
  voicing of voiceless consonants
• Incorrect phasing of gestures relative to the
  gestural score prolongation of vowels

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Dysarthria or apraxia?

• Dysarthria Dysarthria is caused by damage to the
  nerve impulses to the speech organs preventing
  normal movement of these in all conditions.
• Apraxia In apraxia there is no damage to the
  speech organs as such. What has been disturbed,
  is the capacity to program the articulatory
  organs for the conscious production of speech.

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Apraxia of speech (AOS)?

• Typology of errors in the speech of patients with
  AOS
• Segmental errors that may be classified either as
  phonetic distortions or phonemic substitutions,
  depending on whether they lie within the phonemic
  boundaries of the particular language or not
• Prolongation of segmental durations and
  intersyllabic pauses
• Variable articulatory errors
• Reduced coarticulation
• Abnormal prosody as a result of prolongation of
  articulation and pausal durations
• Difficulties with initiating speech, indicated by
  articulatory groping and struggle

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Evidence from therapy

• Traditional speech therapy for motor speech
  disorders has not been particularly successful in
  the case of BH. But a more cognitive approach,
  focusing on the patient's awareness of her own
  speech output compared to normal speech, has had
  a positive effect. This is also an indication
  that the problem may be of an apraxic nature.

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Summing up

• FAS is a motor speech disorder as a result of
  neurological damage
• An apraxic disorder(?)
• Exhibits features which to the observer resemble
  a foreign accent