Durational changes of apraxic speakers

Durations of phrases, words, and phones were obtained for apraxic and normal speakers during normal and fast speaking conditions. Utterances were a word (permit) and a nonsense disyllable (perpit) embedded in a carrier phrase. Each test utterance was spoken with two syllabic stress patterns. Durations of the phrase, target word, / /(/ /), /I/, and the medial consonant of the target word were measured from oscillograms. Absolute segment durations were longer for apraxic than for normal speakers. During the fast rate condition, normal subjects decreased the duration of three of the four words. There was no evidence that apraxic speakers changed their speaking rates between the two rate conditions. Further investigation of temporal control and segment duration is suggested.