, vol. 62, no. 7, pp. 2099–2117, 2019.
Purpose: Prior investigations suggest that simultaneous
performance of more than 1 motor-oriented task may
exacerbate speech motor deficits in individuals with
Parkinson disease (PD). The purpose of the current
investigation was to examine the extent to which
performing a low-demand manual task affected the
connected speech in individuals with and without PD.
Method: Individuals with PD and neurologically healthy
controls performed speech tasks (reading and
extemporaneous speech tasks) and an oscillatory
manual task (a counterclockwise circle-drawing
task) in isolation (single-task condition) and concurrently
(dual-task condition).
Results: Relative to speech task performance, no changes
in speech acoustics were observed for either group when
the low-demand motor task was performed with the
concurrent reading tasks. Speakers with PD exhibited
a significant decrease in pause duration between the
single-task (speech only) and dual-task conditions
for the extemporaneous speech task, whereas control
participants did not exhibit changes in any speech
production variable between the single- and dual-task
conditions.
Conclusions: Overall, there were little to no changes in
speech production when a low-demand oscillatory motor
task was performed with concurrent reading. For the
extemporaneous task, however, individuals with PD
exhibited significant changes when the speech and manual
tasks were performed concurrently, a pattern that was
not observed for control speakers.
Supplemental Material:
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.
8637008