by Fatemeh Mollaei, Huw Evans, Alexandra Pool Purpose Parkinson’s disease (PD) affects forward flow of speech including fluency disruptions in 90% of individuals. One of the main parameters affecting flow and fluency of speech is pause behaviour.
However, the precise language characteristics of pauses, including sentence complexity and length, and how they contribute to the fluency disruptions of PD are not fully understood. This study examined how sentence complexity and length affect pause behaviour in PD.
Method Seventy-one participants, comprising individuals with PD (n = 32) and neurotypical controls (n = 39), read a speech passage aloud. The number and duration of pauses, categorised by location (between, within sentences), sentence complexity (simple, complex), and sentence length (short, long) were analysed.
Cognitive ability, assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and motor speech deficits (i.e., dysarthria) severity, assessed using a speech perceptual ranking, were evaluated and correlated with pause characteristics. Results Individuals with PD produced significantly more pauses across all categories compared to controls.
However, only between-sentence and long-sentence pauses were significantly longer in duration.
PLOS ONE (Medicine) published a clinical update in Research Highlights on 23 Apr 2026.
The item focuses on Pause characteristics of sentence production in Parkinson’s disease: Insights from sentence complexity and length.
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