Speech-related body movement in aphasia: period analysis of upper arms and head movement

The effects of aphasia on coverbal body movement have important implications for the understanding of both normal and pathological speech processes. The related findings were often inconsistent, partly due to inherent methodological difficulties which could be reduced by the use of advanced techniques of movement monitoring (Hadar, 1991). The present study employed a new computerized system, CODA-3, which locates small prismatic markers and computes by triangulation their three-dimensional position at 100 Hz. Movement of the head and the upper arms was monitored in 15 aphasic and normal subjects engaged in speech during a naturalistic interview. Movement analysis was based on automatized identification of successive movement extrema ("period analysis") and the computation of amplitude, duration, and velocity of each period. The results showed higher incidence and amplitude of all body movement in the aphasic population. Fluent aphasics showed this particularly with "symbolic," content-bearing movements, while nonfluent aphasics were higher than controls in both symbolic and "motor" (simple and small) movements. No deficit in the internal organization of movement was seen in the aphasic population. These results indicate that aphasics increase their coverbal movement in compensation for their speech impairment: fluent aphasics compensate primarily for a symbolic impairment, while nonfluent aphasics compensate more for a motor impairment.