Background: Reading fluency is essential for our functioning in the literate society in which we live. Reading expressiveness or prosody, along with speed and accuracy, are considered key aspects of fluent reading. Prosodic patterns may vary, not being the same in children learning to read as in adulthood. But little is known about the prosodic characteristics and reading fluency of people with neurodegenerative diseases that causes language impairment and reading difficulties, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Objective: The aim of this work was to study reading fluency in AD, considering reading speed, accuracy and reading prosody.

Methods: The participants were 20 healthy elderly Spanish adults, and 20 AD patients, aged 64-88 years. An experimental text was designed, that included declarative, exclamatory, and interrogative sentences, words with different stresses and low-frequency words. The reading of the participants was recorded and analyzed using Praat software.

Results: The AD group showed significantly longer reading duration, both at the syllable level and at the word and sentence level. These patients also committed more pauses between words, which were also longer, and more reading errors. The control group showed a variation of the syllabic F0 in the three types of sentences, while these variations only appeared in declarative ones in the AD group.

Conclusion: The pauses, along with the slight pitch variations and the longer reading times and errors committed, compromise the reading fluency of people with AD. Assessment of this reading feature could be interesting as a possible diagnostic marker for the disease.

背景：阅读流畅性对于我们在我们生活的有文化的社会中发挥作用至关重要。阅读表现力或韵律，以及速度和准确性，被认为是流畅阅读的关键方面。韵律模式可能会有所不同，儿童学习阅读与成人不同。但是，对于导致语言障碍和阅读困难的神经退行性疾病（例如阿尔茨海默病 (AD)）患者的韵律特征和阅读流畅性知之甚少。

目的：这项工作的目的是研究 AD 中的阅读流畅度，考虑阅读速度、准确性和阅读韵律。

方法：参与者为 20 名健康的西班牙老年人和 20 名年龄在 64-88 岁之间的 AD 患者。设计了一个实验文本，包括陈述句、感叹句和疑问句，不同重音的词和低频词。使用 Praat 软件记录和分析参与者的阅读情况。

结果：AD 组的阅读持续时间显着延长，无论是在音节层面还是在单词和句子层面。这些患者在单词之间也有更多的停顿，也更长，阅读错误更多。对照组在三种类型的句子中表现出音节F0的变异，而这些变异只出现在AD组的陈述句中。

结论：停顿、轻微的音高变化以及更长的阅读时间和错误，损害了 AD 患者的阅读流畅度。对这种阅读特征的评估可能是一种有趣的疾病诊断标志物。