ADHD - Voice Analysis, Vocal Acoustic Biomarkers in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Phase 1 Study of Vocal Acoustic Biomarkers in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

The purpose of this study is to detect specific vocal acoustic patterns in the voice of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) patients.

This project aims to develop an objective diagnostic instrument for ADHD through an automatic voice-analysis system, which uses as input the natural speech of the participants. The underlying voice-analysis procedure was developed by J. Langner at Humboldt University of Berlin (Langner 2003). It ignores the semantic content of spoken words and extracts prosodic and sound features from the speech.

Aims of the study:

• deliver optimized multivariate logistic regression models of prosodic and sound properties of speech for ADHD.
• observe sensitivity and specificity of the voice-analysis procedure.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Age 18-50.
2. Written informed consent.
3. Adult ADHD / Non-ADHD according to the fourth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV)
4. Normal vocal functioning, negative history for voice or laryngeal disorders.
5. Currently euthyroid condition; in case of past history of thyroid disease and need for current pharmacological treatment, patient needs to be on stable medication for at least 4 weeks.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Exclusion of borderline and antisocial personality disorder, assessed by the German version of the SCID-II (Fydrich et al., 1997).
2. Exclusion of schizophrenia and psychotic disorders not otherwise specified.
3. Exclusion of Epilepsia.