Peer-reviewed research
Quantifying Speech Rhythm Abnormalities in the Dysarthrias
Julie M. Liss et al., Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52(5), 2009 · DOI 10.1044/1092-4388(2009/08-0208)
Read the originalRead on October 16, 2026
- What it is
- A study of speech rhythm in people with several types of dysarthria, a motor speech disorder, compared with healthy speakers. Its method section defines articulation rate as the number of syllables produced per second with pauses removed, and it reports that measure alongside rhythm metrics.
- How much weight it carries
- Peer-reviewed in a leading speech and hearing journal, with named authors and a DOI. It is a clinical study of a small set of speakers, so its values describe those speakers and speech materials, not all speech. The definition is the part to rely on.
Facts taken from this source
- Articulation rate is the number of orthographic syllables a speaker produces per second, excluding pauses.
“Number of (orthographic) syllables produced per second, excluding pauses.” (Table 3, Definitions of rhythm metrics and articulation rate)
- In that study, articulation rate was timed only on the speech itself: the time a speaker took to say the target syllables, leaving out pauses and dysfluencies.
“articulation rate was calculated as syllables per second, based on the actual time participants took to utter the syllables of the target phrase or sentence, excluding pauses and dysfluencies” (Metrics section, Method)