[Tachylalia: clinical and acoustic study of 149 subjects (author's transl)]

Speech was studied subjectively (listening to recordings) and objectively (measurement of durations) in 67 Parkinsonians, 10 subjects with neurological disorders and 72 psychiatric patients. Acceleration of speech was greatest in the Parkinsonians (8.5 syllables per second). The total duration of a sentence read by several of tachylalic Parkinsonians was the same as that of normal control subjects reading as fast as they could. The duration of the pauses between words varied greatly in all categories of subjects. Almost half of the tachylalic Parkinsonians (10 out of 23) had a speaking time (excluding pauses) shorter than the shortest duration recorded among same-age normal controls. The authors attach particular significance to the cases in which tachylalia is observed in the absence of lesions in the central gray nuclei. These cases suggest that speech automatisms are regulated at several levels.