Compensation for jaw fixation by aphasic patients under conditions of increased articulatory demands: a follow-up study

This investigation explored the ability of eight non-fluent aphasic patients and 10 normal control speakers to compensate for fixation of the jaw by a bite block in the production of vowels and fricative consonants. The articulatory demands were increased relative to production of isolated syllables by eliciting stimuli five times in succession at a rapid rate of speech. Acoustic analyses of the vowels and fricatives revealed comparable patterns in both speaker groups, demonstrating (incomplete) compensation for the bite-block perturbation. The results confirm earlier find: gs of relatively normal articulatory compensation in non-fluent aphasic patients, extending them to conditions of increased articulatory demands. Implications for the role of left hemisphere cortical structures in speech adaptation are briefly considered.