Speech errors in Cantonese speaking adults with cerebral palsy

The aim of this study was to characterize the speech errors made by Cantonese-speaking adults with dysarthria associated with cerebral palsy, using a perceptual-phonetic analysis. The subjects were 22 adult Cantonese speakers with cerebral palsy. Fifteen subjects had spastic-type cerebral palsy, five had athetoid-type and two mixed-type. Single words were transcribed phonetically and analysed by speech part for accuracy and error patterns. There were no significant differences in accuracy for type of cerebral palsy, gender or age. Speakers with athetosis had a significantly higher relative occurrence of diphthong reduction. The majority of error patterns could be explained by the neurological damage of cerebral palsy. However, several patterns were attributed to unique features of the Cantonese phonological system. Physiological explanations and language-specific contributions to speech disorder in this group of speakers were discussed.