Dysphagia is a risk factor of malnutrition in X-linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism.

Introduction: Malnutrition is a leading cause of death for persons living with X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism (XDP), a degenerative disease endemic to the Philippines. Difficulty swallowing has been linked to malnutrition in other populations; however, knowledge of this relationship is limited in XDP. As such, the purpose of this study was to determine the association between dysphagia and malnutrition in this population.

Speech motor impairment in ALS is associated with multiregional cortical thinning beyond primary motor cortex.

Introduction: Cortical thinning is well-documented in individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), yet its association with speech deterioration remains understudied. This study characterizes anatomical changes in the brain within the context of speech impairment patterns in individuals with ALS, providing insight into the disease's multiregional spread and biology.

Methods: To evaluate patterns of cortical thickness in speakers with ALS with and without functional speech changes compared to healthy controls (HCs) using whole-brain and region of interest (ROI) analyses.

The relationship of rate and pause features to the communicative participation of people living with ALS.

Introduction/aims: Many people living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (PALS) report restrictions in their day-to-day communication (communicative participation). However, little is known about which speech features contribute to these restrictions. This study evaluated the effects of common speech symptoms in PALS (reduced overall speaking rate, slowed articulation rate, and increased pausing) on communicative participation restrictions.

Evidence for planning and motor subtypes of stuttering based on resting state functional connectivity.

We tested the hypothesis, generated from the Gradient Order Directions Into Velocities of Articulators (GODIVA) model, that adults who stutter (AWS) may comprise subtypes based on differing connectivity within the cortico-basal ganglia planning or motor loop. Resting state functional connectivity from 91 AWS and 79 controls was measured for all GODIVA model connections. Based on a principal components analysis, two connections accounted for most of the connectivity variability in AWS: left thalamus - left posterior inferior frontal sulcus (planning loop component) and left supplementary motor area - left ventral premotor cortex (motor loop component).

Oral diadochokinetic markers of X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism.

Introduction: X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism (XDP) is a neurodegenerative disorder that may result in severe speech impairment. The literature suggests that there are differences in the speech of individuals with XDP and healthy controls. This study aims to examine the motor speech characteristics of the mixed dystonia-parkinsonism phase of XDP.

The association between longitudinal declines in speech sound accuracy and speech intelligibility in speakers with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

The purpose of this study was to examine how neurodegeneration secondary to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) impacts speech sound accuracy over time and how speech sound accuracy, in turn, is related to speech intelligibility. Twenty-one participants with ALS read the Bamboo Passage over multiple data collection sessions across several months. Phonemic and orthographic transcriptions were completed for all speech samples.

Acoustic Measures of Dysphonia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Purpose: Identifying efficacious measures to characterize dysphonia in complex neurodegenerative diseases is key to optimal assessment and intervention. This study evaluates the validity and sensitivity of acoustic features of phonatory disruption in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Method: Forty-nine individuals with ALS (40-79 years old) were audio-recorded while producing a sustained vowel and continuous speech.

The efficacy of acoustic-based articulatory phenotyping for characterizing and classifying four divergent neurodegenerative diseases using sequential motion rates.

Despite the impacts of neurodegeneration on speech function, little is known about how to comprehensively characterize the resulting speech abnormalities using a set of objective measures. Quantitative phenotyping of speech motor impairments may have important implications for identifying clinical syndromes and their underlying etiologies, monitoring disease progression over time, and improving treatment efficacy. The goal of this research was to investigate the validity and classification accuracy of comprehensive acoustic-based articulatory phenotypes in speakers with distinct neurodegenerative diseases.

Quantifying articulatory impairments in neurodegenerative motor diseases: A scoping review and meta-analysis of interpretable acoustic features.

Purpose: Neurodegenerative motor diseases (NMDs) have devastating effects on the lives of patients and their loved ones, in part due to the impact of neurologic abnormalities on speech, which significantly limits functional communication. Clinical speech researchers have thus spent decades investigating speech features in populations suffering from NMDs. Features of impaired articulatory function are of particular interest given their detrimental impact on intelligibility, their ability to encode a variety of distinct movement disorders, and their potential as diagnostic indicators of neurodegenerative diseases.

Speaking with a KN95 face mask: a within-subjects study on speaker adaptation and strategies to improve intelligibility.

Mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a growing interest in the functional impact of masks on speech and communication. Prior work has shown that masks dampen sound, impede visual communication cues, and reduce intelligibility. However, more work is needed to understand how speakers change their speech while wearing a mask and to identify strategies to overcome the impact of wearing a mask.

Characterizing Dysarthria Diversity for Automatic Speech Recognition: A Tutorial from the Clinical Perspective.

Despite significant advancements in automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology, even the best performing ASR systems are inadequate for speakers with impaired speech. This inadequacy may be, in part, due to the challenges associated with acquiring a sufficiently diverse training sample of disordered speech. Speakers with dysarthria, which refers to a group of divergent speech disorders secondary to neurologic injury, exhibit highly variable speech patterns both within and across individuals.

"You Say Severe, I Say Mild": Toward an Empirical Classification of Dysarthria Severity.

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to create an empirical classification system for speech severity in patients with dysarthria secondary to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by exploring the reliability and validity of speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') ratings of dysarthric speech.

Method: Ten SLPs listened to speech samples from 52 speakers with ALS and 20 healthy control speakers. SLPs were asked to rate the speech severity of the speakers using five response options: normal, mild, moderate, severe, and profound.

Validation of an Acoustic-Based Framework of Speech Motor Control: Assessing Criterion and Construct Validity Using Kinematic and Perceptual Measures.

Purpose: This study investigated the criterion (analytical and clinical) and construct (divergent) validity of a novel, acoustic-based framework composed of five key components of motor control: Coordination, Consistency, Speed, Precision, and Rate.

Method: Acoustic and kinematic analyses were performed on audio recordings from 22 subjects with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis during a sequential motion rate task. Perceptual analyses were completed by two licensed speech-language pathologists, who rated each subject's speech on the five framework components and their overall severity.

A speech measure for early stratification of fast and slow progressors of bulbar amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: lip movement jitter.

: To assess the utility of novel measures derived from a rapid syllable repetition task (i.e. oral dysdiadochokinesis [DDK]) in early stratification of fast and slow progressive bulbar amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and prediction of bulbar disease progression rate.