BACKGROUND: dysarthria in Wilson's disease. PROCEDURES: case study of two patients with disease's diagnosis, both young female adults, with six years of schooling. Perceptual analysis was done by four speech therapists. The following parameters were assessed: voice quality, loudness, pitch, vocal attack, vocal stability and resonance, as well as the degree of deviated parameters, measured by a visual analogue scale. In addition, the intelligibility was analysed by an orthographic transcription method. Praat 4.4.13 software was used for acoustic analysis. Fundamental frequency, phonatory stability, noise and temporal measures were equally assessed. RESULTS: both patients have a speech characterized by: maximum phonation time reduced, breathiness and strained harsh voice quality, voice stoppages, transient breathiness, increased shimmer and noise-to-harmonics ratio, hypernasality. Oral diadochokinesia, speech rate and intelligibility of speech were reduced. The results suggested that the patient who showed Wilson's disease for longer time showed more acute impairments in most of the analyzed perceptual and acoustic parameters. CONCLUSION: both cases showed similar caracteristics. These features seem to be typical in dysarthric patients with Wilson's disease. However, differences were also observed, and can be related to the disease's evolution.
Dysarthria; Hepatolenticular Degeneration; Speech Production Measurement; Speech Acoustics
