Objective: The present study evaluated the ability of acoustic and listener-based perceptual measures to differentiate speech deficits in the premanifest and early stages of HD (EarlyHD).

Background: Dysarthria is common in Huntington’s disease, however, our understanding of how speech is expressed in the premanifest phase (PreHD) remains unclear.

Method: We quantified speech characteristics in a group of 13 people with PreHD, 17 with EarlyHD, and 15 neurologically healthy controls using sustained vowel and connected speech samples.

Results: Listener-based assessment detected speech deficits that were in-line with disease progression. Although not reaching significance, perceptual analyses showed a higher occurrence of voice disorder, altered prosody and speech-timing in speakers with PreHD compared to healthy controls. Perceptual analyses also revealed a significant, mild to moderate level of impairment across measures of voice quality, prosody, articulation, intelligibility and naturalness in speakers with EarlyHD. Acoustic analyses did not reveal a significant difference between PreHD and control groups, nor a significant difference between EarlyHD and controls. Contrary to acoustic analyses results, dysphonia was reported in approximately 70% of people with EarlyHD using perceptual assessment.

Conclusion: Perceptual evaluations indicated that subtle changes in speech precede a clinical diagnosis of HD, and demonstrated a higher incidence of speech impairment in EarlyHD. Instrumental evaluation of speech, however, was not sufficient to distinguish speech patterns in premanifest and EarlyHD. The present study demonstrates a need for a more sensitive acoustic speech battery to better identify and intervene speech disorders in HD.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/can-we-hear-pathology-in-premanifest-huntingtons-disease-acoustic-and-listener-based-analysis-of-speech/