Abstract

In this chapter, the main findings for vowel production in Foreign Accent Syndrome, comparing and contrasting results for consonant production, will be reviewed. A review of this literature will demonstrate that vowel production is more consistently affected by FAS than consonant production. Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) is a rare neurological speech disorder presenting with a foreign-sounding accent. It results from neurological insult such as stroke or traumatic brain injury. To date, a few cases of FAS report concomitant diagnoses of aphasia (Whitaker, 1982; Graff-Radford, Cooper, Colsher, & Damasio, 1986; Ardila, Rosselli, & Ardila, 1988; Kurowski, Blumstein, & Alexander, 1996). However, it is important to distinguish FAS as a disorder characterized solely by impairment of speech, rather than one of language or cognition. According to Whitaker (1982): “Most aphasic patients retain their accent, or dialect, which they had prior to the onset of disease” (p. 195). A thorough review of the literature portrays FAS as a disorder characterized by some degree of variation in symptomatology, etiology, and speech characteristics across case studies.