Journal of Communication Disorders, Deaf Studies & Hearing Aids
Open Access

Abstract

Electropalatography in a Case of Congenital Aglossia

Betty L McMicken, Andrew Kunihiro, Long Wang, Shelley Von Berg and Kelly Rogers

Objective: The purpose of this study, the fifth in a series on a Person with Congenital Aglossia (PWCA), was: 1) to determine if there was activation of electrodes in a PWCA during swallow and articulation as detected by the Electropalatography (EPG), 2) to compare the electrode activation patterns in PWCA to those in People without Congenital Aglossia (PWoCA).

Methods: EPG was performed using the Complete Speech SmartPalate® software and hardware designed from impressions of the PWCA, a 44-year old Caucasian female. Stimulus materials consisted of 11 vowel-constantvowel combinations were derived from prior research.

Results: The PWCA was able to activate electrodes in the anterior and posterior palatal areas, noticeably greater in swallowing than in speech. While PWCA patterns demonstrated significantly fewer electrode activations, patterns were discernibly similar to normal data derived from PWoCA.

Conclusion: This study employed EPG to investigate the unique speech production pattern of a 44-year old female PWCA and compared these patterns with those of PWoCA published by Dromey and Sanders. The question remains as to the exact nature of the articulatory compensations and adjustments which allow the PWCA to speak in an intelligible fashion and produce consonants which are perceptually correct and distinguishable from each other.