Lexical diversity in Parkinson's disease
Charles Ellis1, Yolanda F Holt1, Thomas West1
1Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, 3310H Health Sciences Building, MS 668, Greenville, NC 27834 USA.
Journal of Clinical Movement Disorders
|January 21, 2016
Summary
Lexical diversity in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients is similar to controls. Early-stage PD does not appear to impact word choice or richness in spoken language.
Area of Science:
- Neurology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Parkinson's disease (PD) affects basal ganglia pathways, impacting motor, cognitive, and expressive language functions.
- Subtle expressive language deficits may appear in early-stage PD.
- Lexical diversity measures can assess expressive language in PD.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate lexical diversity in the expressive language of individuals with PD.
- To compare lexical diversity between PD patients and healthy controls.
Main Methods:
- Compared 12 individuals with PD to 12 matched controls.
- Analyzed 3-minute discourse samples for lexical diversity using Type-Token Ratio (TTR) and voc-D.
- Utilized the CHILDES program for analysis.
Main Results:
- No significant differences in word productivity between PD patients and controls (387 vs. 356).
- No significant differences in lexical diversity measures (TTR: .45 vs. .44; D: 74 vs. 68) between groups.
- Statistical analysis showed non-significant p-values for all comparisons.
Conclusions:
- Lexical diversity in discourse production is comparable between individuals with PD and controls.
- Early-stage Parkinson's disease does not significantly impact lexical diversity.
- Expressive language, specifically lexical richness, remains intact in the initial stages of PD.
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