| Sumario: | Purpose: Increased speaking rate is a commonly reported perceptual characteristic among males with fragile × syndrome (FXS). The objective of this preliminary study was to determine articulation rate—one component of perceived speaking rate—and vowel space characteristics of young males with FXS. Method: Young males with FXS (n = 38), developmental age (DA)-matched males (n = 21), and chronological age (CA)-matched males (n = 16) were audiotaped while engaged in spontaneous conversation and a picture-naming task. Articulation rate in syllables per second during intelligible utterances and vowel space area/dispersion measures were acoustically determined for each speaker. Results: Males with FXS did not articulate significantly faster than CA-matched males. Area and dispersion of the acoustic vowel space also were similar between the 2 groups. Males with FXS, however, used significantly shorter utterances and had a tendency to pause less often than CA-matched males. In addition, males with FXS exhibited greater intraspeaker variability of formants associated with the vowel /a/. Conclusions: These preliminary findings suggest that articulation rate may not be a primary factor contributing to perceived speaking rate of males with FXS. Limitations of the study relative to speech production tasks and utterance intelligibility are discussed. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
|
|---|