Speech and vocal tics in Tourette syndrome
Tourette syndrome is a neurological condition that causes individuals to produce unwanted movements and vocalizations called tics. Tics have nothing to do with what the person intends to do; they are separate from what we do on purpose. My dissertation analyzes tic vocalizations and the speech that they co-occur with.
Tourette syndrome is a neurological condition that causes individuals to produce unwanted movements and vocalizations called tics. Tics have nothing to do with what the person intends to do; they are separate from what we do on purpose. My dissertation analyzes tic vocalizations and the speech that they co-occur with.
pape2.pdfPoster for Phonetics and Phonology in Europe (PaPE) 2019. Named Best Student Poster.
Poster for Phonetics and Phonology in Europe (PaPE) 2019. Named Best Student Poster.
What are some of the reasons I study Tourette's tics?
- Despite many years of Tourette's research, next to nothing is known about the actual tics! As far as I know, my dissertation is the first time anyone has collected vocal ticking data for the purposes of acoustic analysis and comparison with communicative speech.
- For lots of people, tics are a response to a preceding urge to produce that tic. Urge-based actions like these are interesting to me because they can compete with speech to take control over the vocal-respiratory system. There's not a lot of information about how the speech production system deals with vocal urges, and investigating ticcing-while-talking is one way to get at that information.
- This kind of research brings into focus an aspect of people's actual experience, and that is completely intentional. I like to use science to learn about how us humans do the (spectacular) things we do. That includes the unique ability to tic pretty frequently while simultaneously producing fluent speech.
To learn more about living a tic-full life, check out the Tourettes Hero's website, or this Ted Talk, or visit the pages of the Tourette Association of America.
174th meeting of the acoustical society of america
174th meeting of the acoustical society of america
My poster on the durational stability of vocal tics produced during active speech was awarded 1st place in the Speech Communication category of the student poster competition.