An atypical case of Foreign Accent Syndrome

Ryalls, John; Whiteside, Janet

doi:10.1080/02699200400026900

Cited by 36 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Rather, this vowel substitution pattern was limited to her 'yah' productions in spontaneous speech. Unlike previous cases of lexical substitution reported in patients with FAS (Laures-Gore et al, 2006;Ryalls & Whiteside, 2006), the patient was aware of these modifications and was able to exert conscious control to repair the 'yah' to a 'yeah', when pressed. Given the phonetic and semantic similarity of the two utterances, it is unlikely this is a form of circumlocution.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 62%

“…In the patient they analysed, explanations (b) and (c) were considered plausible accounts of the consonantal fortitions and lowered incidence of vowel weakening processes observed. Tense vocal tract settings have been viewed as possible explanations in a number of recent studies of FAS Moen, 2000;Ryalls & Whiteside, 2006). An alternative basis for FAS was advanced by Blumstein et al (1987) who suggested that both segmental and prosodic effects in their patient may be explained by a general prosodic disturbance-a disturbance in speech timing (see also Blumstein & Kurowski, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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The role of prosody in a case of foreign accent syndrome (FAS)

Katz

Garst

Levitt

2008

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics

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Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a rare disorder characterized by the emergence of a perceived foreign accent following brain damage. The symptomotology, functional bases, and neural substrates of this disorder are still being elucidated. In this case study, acoustic analyses were performed on the speech of a 46-year old monolingual female who presented with FAS of unknown aetiology. The patient had a pseudo-accent frequently described as 'Swedish' or 'Eastern European'. Stop consonant VOT, consonant burst spectra and duration, vowel durations, formant frequencies, and trajectories were analysed, along with prosodic cues for lexical stress assignment and sentence-level intonation. Results indicated VOT values were generally preserved, while there was a strong tendency to realize the English alveolar flap as a full stop, and to produce flaps that had greater-than-normal closure durations. The spectral properties of the patient's vowels resembled those of normal talkers (with the possible exceptions of decreased F1 values for /i/ and slight differences in formant dynamics for /u/, /o/, /i/, and /epsilon/). However, vowel durations were relatively long, contributing to exaggerated tense/lax contrasts. Token-to-token variability in vowel production was slightly higher than normal for duration, but not for formant frequency values. Lexical stress assignment was inaccurate and highly variable (with similar problems noted for non-speech materials), and sentence level intonation showed occasional deviations from typical American English patterns. For this patient, an underlying timing/rhythm difficulty appeared responsible for the range of segmental and suprasegmental changes leading to the impression of a foreign accent.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 62%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The role of prosody in a case of foreign accent syndrome (FAS)

Katz

Garst

Levitt

2008

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics

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“…Furthermore, her foreign accent was accompanied by codeswitching, with occasional French words and grammatical errors typical of native French speakers. Similar features have been reported in a handful of cases (e.g., Gurd et al, 2001;Reeves & Norton, 2001;Roth, Fink, Cherney, & Hall, 1997;Ryalls & Whiteside, 2006;Seliger, Abrams, & Horton, 1992). In contrast, our patient's speech profile, like the majority of FAS cases, was generically foreign in nature, unrelated to previous accent exposure, and restricted to pronunciation changes.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Foreign accent syndrome due to conversion disorder: Phonetic analyses and clinical course

Haley

Roth

Helm-Estabrooks

et al. 2010

Journal of Neurolinguistics

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“…Reported changes in intonation include a variety of -sometimes contradictory -features: a higher mean pitch (e.g. Blumstein et al, 1987;Coelho & Robb, 2001;Ryalls & Whiteside, 2006); inappropriately large and sharp pitch excursions on prominent syllables (e.g. Avila, González, Parcet & Belloch, 2004;Moonis et al, 1996); exaggerated terminal falls (Ingram et al, 1992;Moen, 2006); reduced pitch range (GraffRadford et al, 1986;Kanjee, Watter, Sévigny & Humphreys, 2010;Verhoeven & Mariën, 2010); and the inappropriate use of intonation to indicate statements (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intonation in neurogenic foreign accent syndrome

Kuschmann

Lowit

Miller

et al. 2012

Journal of Communication Disorders

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Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a motor speech disorder in which changes to segmental as well as suprasegmental aspects lead to the perception of a foreign accent in speech. This paper focuses on one suprasegmental aspect, namely that of intonation. It provides an in-depth analysis of the intonation system of four speakers with FAS with the aim of establishing the intonational changes that have taken place as well as their underlying origin. Using the autosegmental-metrical framework of intonational analysis, four different levels of intonation, i.e. inventory, distribution, realisation and function, were examined in short sentences. Results revealed that the speakers with FAS had the same structural inventory at their disposal as the control speakers, but that they differed from the latter in relation to the distribution, implementation and functional use of their inventory. The current results suggest that these intonational changes cannot be entirely attributed to an underlying intonation deficit but reflect secondary manifestations of physiological constraints affecting speech support systems and compensatory strategies. These findings have implications for the debate surrounding intonational deficits in FAS, advocating a reconsideration of current assumptions regarding the underlying nature of intonation impairment in FAS.

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An atypical case of Foreign Accent Syndrome

Cited by 36 publications

References 11 publications

The role of prosody in a case of foreign accent syndrome (FAS)

The role of prosody in a case of foreign accent syndrome (FAS)

Foreign accent syndrome due to conversion disorder: Phonetic analyses and clinical course

Intonation in neurogenic foreign accent syndrome

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