The effect of auditory rhythmic stimulation on articulatory accuracy in apraxia of speech.

In order to study the effects of different rates of rhythmic auditory stimulation on the phonemic accuracy of speakers who have apraxia of speech, eight apraxic subjects read four equated monosyllabic passages under one control and three experimental conditions. In the experimental conditions, rhythmic auditory stimulation provided by a metronome was imposed at each subject's oral reading rate as well as 75% and 125% of this established rate. In the control condition, the subjects read without any accompanying rhythmic stimulation. It was found that the stimulus supplied by an auditory metronome did not significantly improve the phonemic accuracy of these subjects. Articulatory accuracy tended to deteriorate under imposed rhythmic stimulation.