Production and perception of mandarin tone in adults with cerebral palsy

The primary objective of the present study was to document tone production and intelligibility deficits in Mandarin-speaking persons with cerebral palsy (CP). Spastic, athetoid, and mixed types of CP were studied, along with a control group, to investigate the possibility of tone production and intelligibility deficits that were differentially affected by type of CP. Speakers produced a 78-word list that included contrasts for all four Mandarin tones. Intelligibility data were obtained for these words from 26 native speakers of Mandarin, and F0 contour analyses were implemented in CSpeech (Milenkovic) for a subset of the words. Mean tone intelligibility for speakers with CP was 73%, significantly different from the 91% value for control speakers. F0 contour analysis showed that speakers with CP maintained some contrast among the F0 contours for the four tones, but with less distinction than contrasts observed for control speakers. Discussion focuses on the role of tone in a model of the dysarthria associated with CP.