Basis of intonation disturbance in aphasia: Production

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of the present study was to determine if abnormalities in intonation produced by patients with aphasia have their origin in linguistic or nonlinguistic deficit. Components of fundamental frequency (F0) contours that were either linguistically or nonlinguistically determined were examined in utterances produced by patients with fluent and nonfluent aphasia, as well as by a group of normal subjects. While the production of high components of the terminal F0 contours in interrogatives was difficult for both groups of aphasic subjects, in general, their performances on measures in the two categories of F0 components were comparable to the performance of the normal subjects. Discussion focuses on theoretical and methodological aspects of intonation evaluation in the aphasic population.