Speech rhythm and timing of a speech-impaired speaker

We made quantitative rhythmic and timing measurements on speech samples obtained a 61 year-old monolingual female English speaker who is reported to have required a rare but possible case of Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS). The phonetic characteristics of speech produced by individuals with FAS affects both suprasegmental and segmental properties. We used a large scale of speech samples to overcome difficulties of comparison due to the lack of speech samples before the accident. The results showed that the speaker has greater variability than control speakers, and that speech rate is slower, but that the rhythmic patterns were more to the stress timed. The results imply that the greater variability of the rhythmic and timing patterns in the speech-impaired speaker can be used as a means of identifying areas of speech production in the speech-impaired speaker.