Welcome to the homepage of the Motor Speech Disorders Laboratory at Arizona State University, directed by Dr. Julie Liss. Our group consists of Dr. Julie Liss, Dr. Stephanie Spitzer, and Kaitlin Lansford. We are located in the Lattie F. Coor Building and conduct research here and at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale.

The Motor Speech Disorders Laboratory at ASU has state-of-the-art capabilities for both acoustic and perceptual analyses of speech. Presently, two lines of research are being conducted in the area of motor speech disorders. The first line takes a cognitive-linguistic perspective and focuses on the perception of dysarthric speech, and clinical intervention models. Our grant, “The Perception of Dysarthric Speech” (NIH-NIDCD R01DC006859), examines how listeners perceptually deal with different types and severities of dysarthria. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop a dysarthria-specific intervention model that takes into account the perceptual needs of the listener. In collaboration with colleagues at Mayo Clinic-Scottsdale, we collect speech samples from patients with Parkinson’s disease, ALS, multiple sclerosis, and Huntington’s disease.

A second line of research focuses more on the production aspects of speech. Our motor control studies include the effects of drugs and surgery (DBS) on speech in Parkinson’s and other movement disorders; speech production deficits in hereditary diseases (Lubag’s disease; pallido-ponto-nigral degeneration); and patterns of cortical-muscular coherence during speech and non-speech tasks in patients with and without Parkinson’s disease. These projects are supported by and conducted through collaborative efforts with our colleagues at Mayo Clinic-Scottsdale.