Phonatory Reaction Times of Rheumatoid Arthritic and Normal Females

Abstract

This study examined the degree to which rheumatoid arthritis affects a speaker's ability to accomplish rapid vocal fold adjustments. The phonatory initiation, phonatory termination, and manual reaction times of 14 rheumatoid arthritic (RA) and 14 normal (NL) speakers were compared during a morning and an afternoon session. In addition, electroglottographic (EGG) measures (0 Hz-10 kHz bandwidth and 30 Hz-10 kHz bandwidth) allowed us to explore the components of each subject's reaction times. For two speech reaction-time tasks, temporal measures that reflected primarily mechanical adjustments of the vocal folds were significantly longer in the RA group than in the NL group. The two groups also differed significantly on manual response time, phonatory initiation time, and medial movement initiation time. Neither group displayed evidence of laryngeal morning stiffness.