BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Dysarthria affects linguistic domains such as respiration, 
phonation, articulation, resonance and prosody due to upper motor neuron, lower 
motor neuron, cerebellar or extrapyramidal tract lesions. Although Bengali is 
one of the major languages globally, dysarthric Bengali speech has not been 
subjected to neurolinguistic analysis. We attempted such an analysis with the 
goal of identifying the speech defects in native Bengali speakers in various 
types of dysarthria encountered in neurological disorders.
SETTINGS AND DESIGN: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted with 66 
dysarthric subjects, predominantly middle-aged males, attending the 
Neuromedicine OPD of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Kolkata.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: After neurological examination, an instrument comprising 
commonly used Bengali words and a text block covering all Bengali vowels and 
consonants were used to carry out perceptual analysis of dysarthric speech. From 
recorded speech, 24 parameters pertaining to five linguistic domains were 
assessed. The Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance, Chi-square test and Fisher's 
exact test were used for analysis.
RESULTS: The dysarthria types were spastic (15 subjects), flaccid (10), mixed 
(12), hypokinetic (12), hyperkinetic (9) and ataxic (8). Of the 24 parameters 
assessed, 15 were found to occur in one or more types with a prevalence of at 
least 25%. Imprecise consonant was the most frequently occurring defect in most 
dysarthrias. The spectrum of defects in each type was identified. Some 
parameters were capable of distinguishing between types.
CONCLUSIONS: This perceptual analysis has defined linguistic defects likely to 
be encountered in dysarthric Bengali speech in neurological disorders. The 
speech distortion can be described and distinguished by a limited number of 
parameters. This may be of importance to the speech therapist and neurologist in 
planning rehabilitation and further management.