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Abstract
Rehabilitation of patients with traumatic brain injury is a challenge for whole rehabilitation
team (especially for speech and language pathologist). There is a general agreement
that individual who suffer head injury may exhibit communication deficit either in
the form of speech disorders (dysarthria) or language disorders (subclinical aphasia).
Although head injured patients recover basic language skill within the first six months
post-injury, they continue to show deficits in the analysis and synthesis of expressive
and receptive language. Acoustical correlates of speech in patients with traumatic
brain injury have received minimal attention in research literature. We examined the
residual speech impairment in patients with traumatic brain injury even after 3 yrs
post trauma, using ten simple sentences in Marathi. Subjects were asked to read the
sentences, which were recorded digitally. Acoustical as well as perceptual analysis
was carried out. The scores were compared with healthy controls. Patients showed deviated
results compared to healthy controls except intensity parameters. Duration of word
was lengthened in the patients with traumatic brain injury. Vowel quadrangle was shrunken
as compared to healthy controls. Though the difference was not statistically significant,
the milder deviations in speech of patients with TBI were affecting the results in
perceptual evaluation. Patient with traumatic brain injury need long term therapy
in terms of their speech and language is concerned. The study concludes that TBI patients
continued to have prosodic as well as articulatory deviations (compared to healthy
controls) even after 3 years after trauma.
Keywords
frequency - intensity - duration - traumatic brain injury (TBI) - vowel quadrangle
