*Presented at MDS Congress 2026

Question

Can a comprehensive speech protocol be reduced by keeping diagnostic information?

Participants

20 healthy controls

24 individuals with PD (med-ON, DBS-ON)

Perceptual SLP Ratings

Determine clinically relevant speech changes according to:

• Intelligibility

• Naturalness

GRBAS, RBH, and AMSD scales

14 Speech Tasks

Connected Speech

• Free speech

• Picture description

• Reading (3 x versions)

Fast syllable repetitions

• pa-ta-ka

• ka-ka-ka

• ga-ga-ga

Vowel phonation

• ihh, ahh, uhh

Prominence marking

• Question-answer task to evaluate prosodic deficits

A composite severity score was computed for each subject across all 14 tasks by averaging 9 clinical features mapping directly onto hypokinetic dysarthria: Intelligibility, naturalness, imprecise consonants, monopitch, monoloudness, low volume, abnormal rate, variable rate, and grade of dysphonia.

2 Tasks - Protocol

ka-ka-ka + reading

CV-AUC 0.975

100 % Sensitivity

93.3 % Specificity