Liss J M, Weismer G, Rosenbek J C
Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
J Gerontol. 1990 Mar;45(2):P35-45. doi: 10.1093/geronj/45.2.p35.
An understanding of the effects of advancing age on speech characteristics is crucial for those who study and serve the older population. The purpose of this study was to obtain a normative data base for the speech production characteristics of a group of very old men. Fourteen veterans 87 to 93 years old served as subjects, producing a total of 40 sentences at a conversational rate. Wide-band (300 Hz) spectrograms were created from high-quality tape recordings. Specified acoustic measures were made (consonant, vowel, and voice-onset time durations; and vowel formant frequencies and trajectory slopes) via digitizer and microcomputer Sonogram Analyzer program. Descriptive analysis of the selected measurements was performed to obtain a profile of speech production behavior for these subjects. Data were also compared to those of the young adult, Parkinson's disease patients, and younger elderly subjects studied by Weismer (1984a) and Weismer, Kimelman, and Gorman (1985). Performance of the older subjects was similar to that of the younger elderly in many cases, but in certain cases bore notable similarities to Parkinsonian speech. Theoretical implications of aging and disease are addressed.
对于研究老年人群体并为其提供服务的人来说，了解衰老对言语特征的影响至关重要。本研究的目的是获取一组高龄男性言语产生特征的常模数据库。14名年龄在87至93岁之间的退伍军人作为研究对象，以会话语速共说出40个句子。通过高质量录音创建了宽带（300赫兹）声谱图。通过数字化仪和微型计算机声谱图分析仪程序进行了特定的声学测量（辅音、元音和嗓音起始时间时长；以及元音共振峰频率和轨迹斜率）。对所选测量值进行描述性分析，以获取这些研究对象言语产生行为的概况。研究数据还与年轻人、帕金森病患者以及韦斯默（1984年a）和韦斯默、基梅尔曼和戈尔曼（1985年）研究的年轻老年人的数据进行了比较。在许多情况下，老年研究对象的表现与年轻老年人相似，但在某些情况下与帕金森病患者的言语有显著相似之处。文中探讨了衰老和疾病的理论意义。
